JTLS, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2026, pp. 123-148.
Print ISSN: 3135-6788; Online ISSN: 3135-6796
Journal homepage: https://www.tlsjournal.com
DOI：https://doi.org/10.64058/jtls260102usktt
Urban Sketching in Kiyooka Takayuki’s Travelogue “Dalian in Early Winter”
Yu Qi
Abstract: Kiyooka Takayuki (1922–2006), a celebrated Japanese poet and novelist, was born in Dalian, China, where he spent his adolescence before repatriating to Japan in 1948. His work melds personal experience with lyricism. Dalian under the Acacia Trees, winner of the sixty-second Akutagawa Prize (1970), draws upon colonial urban memory. The opening story of Collection of Dalian Sketches (1983), “Dalian in Early Winter,” records his observations upon revisiting the city after thirty-four years. The text’s meticulous temporal, spatial, and characterological detail reflects an obsessive pursuit of authenticity—a drive to restore things to themselves. Set against the backdrop of 1980s Sino-Japanese relations, a period marked both by warmth and by persistent tensions such as the textbook controversy, the story offers not only a vivid urban portrait but also an implicit historical reckoning. Kiyooka’s focus on the quotidian aligns him with the Introverted Generation, a dominant 1970s Japanese literary movement, yet his infusion of historical reflection signals a critical engagement with that tradition. Published during the ascendancy of “urban theory” in Japanese literary studies, “Dalian in Early Winter” may be read as a practical enactment of that framework. Through its layered attention to reality, history, and psychology, Kiyooka constructs a multidimensional space for dialogue with the contemporary reader.
Keywords: Kiyooka Takayuki; “Dalian in Early Winter”; travelogue; urban writing; contemporaneous studies
Author Biography: Yu Qi, is a doctoral student at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Tsinghua University. Research Interests: colonial literature, travel literature, and urban literature. Email: qi-y25@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
Received: 26 Mar 2026 / Revised: 26 May 2026 / Accepted: 02 Aug 2026 / Published online: 15 Sep 2026 / Print published: 15 Dec 2026.
