On Nov. 26, 1935, the inaugural ceremony of the Japan P.E.N. Club was held in Tokyo, attended by many of the era’s leading writers, critics and other literary figures.

Its first president, Toson Shimazaki (1872-1943)--a towering novelist and poet who helped shape modern Japanese literature--defined the organization’s mission with striking simplicity: to “select and introduce Japanese literature abroad.”

At the time, Japan was steadily descending into an age of intensifying militarism. The country had withdrawn from the League of Nations and was growing increasingly isolated on the world stage.

After the war that devastated the nation, the organization was reborn in 1947 as the new Japan P.E.N. Club, with Naoya Shiga (1883-1971), one of Japan’s most influential writers, serving as its........

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