Shiki Nagaoka: A Nose for Fiction

Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin introduces the revolutionary work of a mysterious Japanese writer whose very existence has been all but erased from world literature. A writer who inspired Juan Rulfo and José María Arguedas, Shiki Nagaoka’s work has never been available in English, and his most famous novel, which still hasn’t been entirely deciphered, is written in an untranslatable language. Bellatin refuses to allow his portrait of the writer to end with the deformedly large nose that determined his life path, by offering a thorough analysis of the writer’s innovative use of photography and translation as integral processes in the production of his texts.