Waseda University researchers will hold a seminar Thursday to release studies on Japanese publications collected for review by American military censors in postwar occupied Japan.
The Prange Collection consists of thousands of newspapers, magazines and books that have been found to include some of the early works of famous Japanese writers, including Kenzaburo Oe.
The Institute for Research in Contemporary Political Affairs, along with the Institute of 20th Century Media, will hold the seminar at Waseda University. Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone will attend, researchers said.
Included in the Prange Collection of Japanese newspapers, magazines, books and pamphlets published from 1945 to 1949 are works by famous writers, including an essay in a religious magazine written by novelist Ryotaro Shiba when he was a newspaper reporter.
A poem about a river written by Oe, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in literature, when he was in junior high school has also been found in an educational pamphlet, although Oe said this week he discredits the work because his teacher forced him to write it and then changed it.
The Prange Collection is kept at the library of the University of Maryland.
Microfilm of the newspaper and magazine collections can be viewed in Japan at the National Diet Library.
Taketoshi Yamamoto, a professor of media history at Waseda, began compiling the magazine collection on a database in 2000, and around 70 percent of it has been covered so far. The material can be viewed on the Internet at www.prangedb.jp