SOURCE: Introduction to The Shiga Hero, University of Chicago Press, 1979, pp. 1-34.

In the following excerpt, Sibley argues that the narrator of Shiga's stories is a distinct persona that, while often serving as the author's alter-ego, is separate from him. He names this figure the "Shiga hero. "

Shiga Naoya (1883-1971) wrote a fairly large number of short stories, many pieces that are still shorter and essentially nonfiction, a few narratives of intermediate length (so-called chūhen shōsetsu), and only a single full-length novel, entitled An'ya kōro, which has been translated by Edwin McClellan as A Dark Night's Passing. In spite of the modest quantity of his works that would be considered by conventional Anglo-American standards belleslettres or "serious literature," in his own country Shiga has at various times over the past sixty years been exalted as a master craftsman of the modern literature and a special...