Junzo Shono: How We Remember Gambier

When I entered the Special Collections room, I had no idea where to start or what to do. We were given large files of several notable Kenyon alumni, and it was overwhelming. Without a clear understanding of the responsibilities we were tasked with, we each selected a different file without giving reason or pause as to who we selected. For one reason or another, Junzo Shono’s name caught my eye. I had never heard of the man, but after taking a class on Japanese Literature last fall, I was curious as to who he was and his involvement with the College. Junzo Shono, an acclaimed Japanese writer, first came to Gambier in 1957, where he spent a year in the College capturing and describing the mundane moments of everyday life (Creel, 2022). He would eventually publish these memories in the form of a novel titled “Gambia Taizaiki” (Sojourn in Gambier. He was born in Osaka, Japan on February 9th, 1921, and studied at Osaka University of Foreign Languages for four years, and later studied at Kyushu Imperial University for a year. By the time he arrived in Gambier, he was already an incredibly accomplished author, having received the highest prize a young author in Japan could win. He would return to the College in 1977, twenty years after his initial arrival, to receive an honorary degree from the College on Honors Day. 

In Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Robert Bellah wrote about how a community is heavily involved in retelling its story in the form of a narrative (229). He describes how there is a plethora of communities in the United States with a unique story. He mentions religious communities that meet once a week to recall and reenact the scripture (229). These stories and the retelling of said stories, form a “practice of commitment” (230) that keeps communities alive.

Though I have not had the opportunity to read Shono’s Sojourn in Gambier, and cannot speak as to its quality and content, the former president of the college, Philip Harding Jordan Jr. described it, stating that it “contained the essence of rural American life”. According to Bella Creel, Class of 22’, Shono “published over 1,500 pages on the small village of Gambier over the course of four books” (4). It is interesting to note that much of this work has not been translated into English until Creel translated it in April of 2022. Therefore, though Shono wrote of the beauty of Gambier in the spring, his work was not published with an American audience in mind. He retold the story of a community, a community in which he participated and was an active member, but he told the story to an audience that had never experienced it. He kept the image of the community alive, but he did not share this image with the community. The story can only be accessed through an understanding of the Japanese language, or through Creel's translations.