Abstract

DURAND ATO, David. Paranoia and identity in the narrative of Augusto Higa Oshiro: the case of Japón no da dos oportunidades (1994). Desde el Sur [online]. 2019, vol.11, n.2, pp.41-60. ISSN 2076-2674.  http://dx.doi.org/10.21142/DES-1102-2019-41-60.

In Japón no da dos oportunidades (1994), Augusto Higa Oshiro narrates his experience of working in Japan, in an uncompromising testimony that offers a critique of Japan’s capitalist society and unveils processes of disappointment and exclusion marked by the irruption of paranoid tendencies. The text focuses upon the conflict between the Japan idealized by the author’s Japanese-born parents, a society defined by traditional values and yearned for by the younger generation, and the competitive, homogeneous, exclusive and racist society that Higa encounters. The goal of this essay is to focus upon how such exclusion functions, the notion of the work ethic, and the sense of alienation that arises from such a process; one that is not entirely available to Higa, in spite of all the efforts narrated throughout the book. In this way, he explores his condition as a Latin American and Peruvian, while addressing the sense of persecution and mental illness that lead to delirium and the final breakdown of the yearned-for process of identification, as he returns to Peru.

Keywords : identity; paranoia; work; migration.

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