JOURNEY AS SELF-REFLECTION - KAIKŌ TAKESHI’S “ESCAPE” FROM JAPAN

Abstract

This paper sets out to analyze Kaikō Takeshi’s travelogue "Kako to mirai no kuniguni – Chūgoku to Tōō" (“Countries of Past and Future – China and Eastern Europe”), which describes Kaikō’s first experience of Eastern Europe and China. As a writer who got to be well-recognized for his reportage writing and novels based on his own experience, Kaikō’s initial struggle abroad turned out to be the opportunity that lit his inner desire to continue searching for the truth, leading him towards the exploration of the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, which is the writing he is still most well remembered for today.