Itō Seikō’s mourning voice(s)

Two years after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami or 3.11 as it is more commonly known, Japanese author Itō Seikō いとうせいこう achieved a resounding success with his novel Sōzō Rajio 想像ラジオ, an atypical story of a radio program whose main protagonists are the deceased. Ten years later, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the disaster, the nonfictional work entitled Fukushima monorōgu 福島モノローグ makes its appearance on the bookshelves. This late publication brings back the voices of the 3.11 survivors in a specular fashion in comparison with the previous work and elicits the misleading juxtaposition of fiction and death, and non-fiction and life. This study explores the representational power of Itō’s literature when it comes to mourning death and loss in the wake of the 3.11 disaster. By applying a psychological reading of his works, the article pursues the main objective, which is to investigate the role of literature in dealing with psychological trauma and examine how trauma is represented, thus emphasizing the value attributed by the writer to the victim’s mourning voices.