The Fiction of the Ninja: How Literature Became History in 20th Century Pop Culture

Popular English-language books on the historical ninja over the last fifty years have shown an alarming tendency to present purported historical events which, on closer examination, turn out to come from works of fiction such as plays, novels, and films. This tendency can also be found in Japanese-language works, but is more pronounced – and more of a problem – in English-language popular media. Lacking Japanese language skills and research training, the authors of most English-language books on ninja routinely fail to check (or even identify) primary sources, meaning that once unreliable information gets into print, it continues to circulate and acquires status as established knowledge. The result is a ninja-related epistemiccrisis: a non-specialist reader trying to research the historical basis for the ninja cannot know for sure whether what she is reading is established historical fact or a scene from a 1960s movie.  

"The Fiction of the Ninja: How Literature Became History in 20th Century Pop Culture," will be a trade book on the intellectual history of the ninja. The aim is to begin to remedy the lack of peer-reviewed scholarship, to make the case for understanding the ninja as a literary phenomenon, and thereby establish ninja as a topic of serious academic study.