In Japanese literature, the Bundan (文壇, Bundan) is a term used to refer to a "system" of literary cliques and coteries that allow small in-groups of established authors, critics, and publishers to selectively advance the careers of favored protégés by controlling access to publication in prestigious literary magazines and dominating the selection committees for prestigious literary prizes such as the Akutagawa Prize.
"[2] The Bundan focuses on highbrow literary fiction (純文学 jun bungaku, literally "pure literature"), and generally does not concern itself with "middlebrow" or "genre" fiction (大衆文学 taishū bungaku, literally "literature for the masses").
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.
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.
[3] 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.