XXX Международный конгресс ИИСАА. 19–21 июня 2019 г. Т. 1

356 XXX Международный Конгресс по источниковедению и историографии стран Азии и Африки Секция VIII. Литература стран Азии и Африки Languages of Asia and Africa Veronika Abbasová (Charles University, Czech Republic) ‘Abnormal Modernism’ of Hamao Shirō’s Heterodox Mystery Fiction This paper focuses on the works of Hamao Shirō (1896–1935). This under- researched pre-war Japanese mystery fiction writer was unique among other writers of the genre by his affluent, aristocratic background and extensive knowledge of Japanese law. He put this knowledge into practice in his original vocation of public prosecutor and later private advocate, as well as into his briefly spanning yet fruitful career as a writer of mystery fiction, where the nature and limits of law and justice often become the author’s focus. Pre-wars detective stories in Japan are usually divided into orthodox ( honkaku ) and heterodox ( henkaku ) branches, with the former presenting a traditional ‘whodunit’ story, where a mystery is solved using scientific, rational logic, while the latter, borrowing the words of fellow mystery writer Jō Masayuki (1904–1976), “takes interest in psychopathological and abnormal aspects, depicting a bizarre world”. Though henkaku stories also feature mysteries, these are often left unsolved and even when there is some of sort solution, the focus lies elsewhere, often on the inner workings of the characters’ psychology, thus allowing for more complex narratives. While Hamao’s oft-proclaimed goal was to write a honkaku-style novel (in which he succeed, for example with his Satsujinki (1931, AMurderer, a full-length novel