The term "Bundan" was first coined in the
Meiji Period by writer and critic
Tsubouchi Shōyō to describe the unity and cohesion of the
Ken'yūsha literary society as it successfully lobbied for and controlled publications of literary works in the
Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. In the early 20th century, the Bundan played an important role in protecting writers' intellectual property rights and pressuring publishers to pay authors decent prices for stories they published. In the 1920s, prominent publisher
Kikuchi Kan was widely recognized as the head of the Bundan, and helped institutionalize its structure by patronizing various literary cliques and establishing important literary prizes including the
Akutagawa Prize and the
Naoki Prize. The Bundan remained prominent well into the postwar period. However, a series of fierce political debates within the Bundan, collectively known as the
Politics and Literature Debates, weakened its cohesion, and many leading literary critics agreed that the Bundan system "collapsed" around the time of the contentious
Anpo protests in 1960 against the
U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which had exacerbated disagreements among writers about the appropriate role of literature in society. Nevertheless, the term "Bundan" did not fall out of use, and is still used to describe informal networks of literary insiders in the Japanese literature scene today. == References ==