A cultural history of writer and literary critic Hayashi Fusa?s (1903–1975) tenk? experience, Stories from the Samurai Fringe examines Hayashis tenk? (ideological conversion) through a close reading of his proletarian short stories. Tracing Hayashis move from romanticizing to defining to remembering the proletarian literature movement and its participants in his proletarian fiction, this study argues for a far more personal and political rationale for Hayashis subsequent turn to ultranationalism. Stories from the Samurai Fringe concludes with a consideration of Hayashis tenk? experience, first, within the historiographical context of the early Showa years (1926–1937), and then within the trans-war setting of Hayashis reemergence as a proponent of wartime nationalism.
