ABSTRACT
The literary text elicits perceptions of historical transformations, an understanding of the ways in which an essential social, cultural and political phenomenon such as sport is appropriated and transformed. In order to encourage moral associations to be made between Western sport and masculinity in Japanese youth, literature about sport was actively published by Japanese media, and was primarily addressed to school boys. Sandra Collins underlines the persistence of the myths of sports literature and comics in which hard work, dedication and motivation bring personal and social success. If sports can be compared to art forms, or certain sportsmen to artists the literary text often records this metamorphosis. The political transformations of the sporting worlds are articulated in literature. This is why; as Mukul Kesavan argues in his reading of three recent cricket novels, it is important to reconsider the ways political cultures shape the fictional imagination when sport supplies the substance of fiction.
