Fantasy and the environment: ‘The Gods Trilogy’ by Tatsumiya Shō

The purpose of the paper is to underline the value of Fantasy which is not an ‘escape literature’ but, according to several critics, can represent with great expressive efficacy many strong tensions of our current era. Fantasy offers a way to look at our life from a different angle and it becomes an incitement to awake awareness of ancient traditions related to nature, sometimes showing in advance a tragic reality. The presentation is focused on the three books of ‘Kamisama shirīzu’ (‘The Gods Trilogy’): Boku no Inariyama senki (My Battle to save Mt. Inari, 1992), Yoru no shinwa (Myths of the Night, 1993) and Mizu no densetsu (Legend of Water, 1995) by Tatsumiya Shō (1954 --), one of the female writers who contributed to the birth of genuine Japanese Fantasy, which includes original authentic Japanese stories.