Kirikirijin 吉里吉里人 is Inoue Hisashi's major satirical novel, challenges the political, cultural and linguistic authority of Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, by depicting the political separation for the Kirikiri people from the rest of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. The Tohoku dialect juxtaposes the fact that it is closely related with the Tokyo dialect (considered as ‘standard’ Japanese) with the fact that it is considered a rural, uneducated and backward dialect because of its sound. It defies Tokyo-centred culture and the homogenisation of individual experience, as well as celebrating imagination, independence and innovation

This novel has been considered as a main example of the current of Magic Realism

Magic realism

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

 in Japanese Literature

Japanese literature

Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written in Classical Chinese. Indian literature also had an influence through the diffusion of Buddhism in Japan...

. Other Japanese authors with considerable literary contributions to this genre are: Abe Kobo, Murakami Haruki, Yasunari Kawabata

Yasunari Kawabata

was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award...

 and Oe Kenzaburo.