Description: In A Sense of the City, Follaco examines Nagai Kafū's (1879-1959) urban representation, both at home and abroad, to define his position within the context of pre-war Japanese literature while touching upon crucial issues of modernity.
Brief description: Gala Maria Follaco, Ph.D. (2012), "L'Orientale" University of Naples, is Research Fellow of Japanese Studies at that University. She has translated the works of several Japanese writers and published articles on urban representation in modern and contemporary Japanese literature.
Review Quotes: "A Sense of the City is the first coherent study of Kafu which places the centrality of the city in his writings at the forefront. Overall, [it] is a complex and timely book, calmly written, unfashionable in theme, and thought provoking. Follaco's investigation of Kafu's notion of the urban and the narrative functions with which he charged it breaks new ground."
-Evelyn Shulz, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, in The Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 46, Number 1, Winter 2020, pp. 239-244