Yone Noguchi’s Impersonation in “The American Diary of a Japanese Girl”

The first Japanese person known to write and publish an American novel, Yone Noguchi disguises as a Japanese female diarist to counter the orientalist representations of Japanese cultural and feminine images in early twentieth-century United States. His impersonation in “The American Diary of a Japanese Girl”, however, results in a conflicting androgynous voice in which the male competes with the female, as well as in a number of contradictions that compromise characterization and plot development. Situating Noguchi in cultural and historical contexts, this essay examines his identity and reception as a translingual writer of English, and the contradictions found in the novel.