The ambivalent utopia

Layers of nostalgia and memory in Murakami Haruki’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls

Bibliographic Data

ID12239754
AuthorsZiwei Xuan (corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-23
Publication date2026-01-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJapan Forum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0955-5803 • E-ISSN: 1469-932X
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09555803.2026.2615085
OpenAlexW7124468859
LanguageEN
References cited18

Scholarship has often been skeptical about nostalgia in Murakami’s narratives of self-discovery in postwar and late-capitalist Japan. This article, however, takes a different view, suggesting that nostalgia has a constructive role. This article explores the tension between two layers of nostalgia—the individual and the instrumental—in Murakami’s latest publication, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. In this novel, nostalgia helps the narrator reconstruct his self-identity and continuity by critically re-engaging with his past, transforming it into a meaningful personal narrative. However, it cannot be overlooked that within the postwar Japanese context, nostalgia can also be co-opted by the state as a tool for constructing an idealized, ambiguous utopia, potentially erasing memories of the war in favor of rapid modernization. Within the tension of the two layers of nostalgia lies the rekindled individuality once suppressed by the rigidity of a governing system.

Ambivalence · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Japanese History and Culture · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior

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