The 1964 Tokyo Olympics was an event that left an impact on many people, and for many others, a context in which they created moving moments and memories. This effect of the Olympics produced a large number of ‘literary’ criticisms and accounts of the games. The writers include Tatsuzo Ishikawa, Yasushi Inoue, Kenzaburo Oe, Makoto Oda, Seicho Matsumoto, Yukio Mishima, and female writers Sawako Ariyoshi, Harumi Setouchi, and Ayako Sono among countless others. However, there are only a handful of works by authors and literary critics on the 1964 Paralympics. Tsutomu Minakami and Yoshio Nakano are among the very few who have written on the Paralympics.
Nevertheless, although it is not widely known, the Tokyo Paralympics was a strongly moving experience for some of its participants and spectators to the extent that it marked a turning point in their lives. This is documented by a small number of people in works that have not received much attention.
This paper introduces these records of impressions left by the Paralympics and literary works and criticisms, as literature on the Tokyo Paralympics. It separates works into three categories based on the writer’s perspective: ⑴ views on the Paralympics by those who express some skepticism on the Olympic Games; ⑵ comments by those who are skeptical of the Paralympic Games itself; and ⑶ works that show the Paralympics as a medium that changed the writer’s life.
https://ror.org/021aawt29 