Jane Austen in popular culture
Austen went out of favour in Japan during the militarist period in the early Showa era (1931-1945) when a xenophobic, ultra-nationalist mood prevailed, and the government discouraged people from reading foreign books. But during the period of the American occupation (1945–52), almost every Austen book was translated into Japanese except "Mansfield Park" (which was not translated until 1978), and Austen started to be widely taught in Japanese high schools. The translation of "Sense and Sensibility" in 1947, followed by a translation of "Pride and Prejudice" in 1950 were published by the prestigious publishing house Iwanami Shoten, and both books sold very well. The success of the Iwanami versions of "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" was the moment that Austen became respectable in Japan. In 1963, the critic Yamamoto Kenkichi, in his essay “The Smile of "Pride and Prejudice"” that proved to be influential, criticized Japanese literature for being overtly solemn and praised Austen for her “natural ease”, which led him to conclude: “Collins, Wickham, Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine, how she turns her laughter on these minor characters. They are observed with some malice, certainly, but in a pleasant, mischievous, irreverent manner which ultimately accords salvation to even these fools”. Austen has been regarded as a major writer in Japan since the 1950s, and in 2007, the Jane Austen Society of Japan was founded to provide a space for Japanese Janeites. In 2015-2016, "manga" versions of "Pride and Prejudice", "Emma", and "Sense and Sensibility" were published in Japan.
Jane Austen in popular culture
The Iranian writer Azar Nafisi recalled teaching Austen secretly in Iran in the 1990s (in the Islamic Republic of Iran Austen is banned as a "degenerate" Western writer) to a group of teenage girls who loved Austen's stories which feature women who fall in love with men who are worthy of their affections, which was so different from their own lives. Nafisi noted in the Islamic Republic of Iran where wife-beating is legal, "love is forbidden, banished from the public sphere" and sex is "violently suppressed", her students fell in love with an author whose books feature female "rebels" who defiantly say "no" to "silly mothers", "incompetent fathers" and a "rigidly orthodox society", and moreover get away with it. An American academic who went on "Radio Times" web broadcast to talk about Austen recalled being besieged with callers of an Asian background. One Iranian woman, living in the United States, called in to say she had first read Austen after her teenage daughter brought home "Sense and Sensibility", which made her cry as she had experienced nothing like this in her own culture, where dating is forbidden and marriages are arranged. Another caller was a Chinese woman whose first Austen book was "Pride and Prejudice", which she read in translation after the ban in China on Austen had been lifted after the end of the Cultural Revolution, saying she nothing read anything so moving and romantic before. The Chinese woman added after seeing all of the violence and horror of the Cultural Revolution when the streets of China were soaked with human blood, so many lives were ruined, and so many had behaved so badly that reading "Pride and Prejudice" she gave her hope in humanity again.