79-year-old Marxist novel becomes bestseller

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    The Guardian reports that a Kanikosen (Factory Ship) 79-year-old novel about exploited workers has become popular in today’s Japan:

    Written by Takiji Kobayashi in 1929, the novel quickly became Japan’s answer to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell’s critique of capitalism. But Kobayashi paid for his radicalism in 1933 when he was tortured to death by the secret police at the age of 29.

    Since its release as a paperback in 1953 the novel, which charts the crew’s attempts to form a union and stage a strike in protest at their appalling working conditions, sold 5,000 copies a year.

    Sales rocketed in 2008 after it was praised by Karin Amamiya, a rightwing punk singer-turned-writer, in a newspaper interview in January. Half a million copies have been sold so far this year, according to Kani Kosen’s publisher, Shinchosha.

    An advertising campaign – linking the plight of the crabbing crew to that of Japan’s modern-day working poor – generated huge sales among people in their 20s and 30s, many of whom work in low-paid jobs with no security or benefits.

    For more info, check this article at Seek Japan and this post at Japan Navigator. Readers of Japanese can also check out the entire text of the novel on this website.

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