As part of the "Tuesday Book" series of events, in the "Eugen Todoran" University Library Hall, on November 4, the launch of the volume took place A Vague Anxiety – Modern Japanese Literature and Its Crises by George T. Sipos, published by the West University Publishing House in Timișoara.

Dana Crăciun and the author, George T. Sipos, spoke.

The work brings to the attention of readers the dynamics of modern Japanese literature and the multiple "crises" - social, political and existential - reflected in the works of emblematic writers such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Dazai Osamu, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, Miyamoto Yuriko and Abe Kōbō.

The volume brings together research articles that explore, among other things, the proletarian literary movement and the political phenomenon of "tenko" (forced conversion), covering the period 1920–1960. The book's title refers to the vague feeling of anxiety ("bonyari shita fuan") evoked by Akutagawa, a symbol of the internal and collective tension in modern Japan.

"…A Vague Anxiety" is addressed to specialists in Japanese literature, researchers in East Asian cultural studies, but also to the general public interested in how literature can reflect the crises of an era.