INTRODUCTION

One of the most intrinsic cultural bonds that the United States has formed in its long history is also an often overlooked one. The cultural ties between the United States and Japan are immense even at the most basic level and weave their way into dozens of subcategories of both countries' cultures.  Japan was influenced significantly by America during the era of Americanization. The Japanese took on clothing, music, and the English language in common conversation.the Japanese literature as we know today is the by product of a lot of sociocultural influences of the west primarily the american . this can be attributed to the large scale immigration in the 18th century by the Japanese to the US. though the cultures of the both countries were separated by decades of cultural evolution . the Japanese  tradition can be dated back as far as 710, the starting of the Nara period,categorized by Man'yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves), an anthology of 4,500 poems composed by people ranging from unknown commoners to emperors and compiled around 759. this period was succeeded by the heian period from 794 to 1185 the most significant work being Konjaku monogatari (Tales of a Time That Is Now Past) around 1120 added a new dimension to literature. This collection of more than 1,000 Buddhist and secular tales from India, China, and Japan is particularly notable for its rich descriptions of the lives of the nobility and common people in Japan at that time. the periods of kamakura muromachi wivh ended in 1573 produced works like Yoshida Kenko's Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness)  , a work marked by penetrating reflections on life .  the edo period from 1603 to 1868 which followed Ihara Saikaku, who realistically portrayed the life of Osaka merchants, and Chikamatsu Monzaemon, who wrote joruri, a form of storytelling involving chanted lines, and kabuki plays. These writers brought about a great flowering of literature. Later Yosa Buson composed superb haiku depicting nature, while fiction writer Ueda Akinari produced a collection of gothic stories called Ugetsu monogatari. after this came the meji period in which the modern japanese writing as we know started to take shape.Futabatei Shimei's Ukigumo (Drifting Clouds) [1887] won acclaim as a new form of novel. Akutagawa Ryunosuke, wrote many superb novelettes based on his detailed knowledge of the Japanese classics . this time also represents the first major migration pattern of japanese going to america. when they came back the new styles of american litrature folled them to japan. it is later through this new found alliance with the west that writers like Kawabata Yasunari came to international recognition. and later won the nobel prize.

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