J. D. Salinger began work on his most celebrated and iconic novel, The Catcher in the Rye (1951), while on active military service in the Second World War. During this time, Salinger was stationed in Devon, England, and later in France, after taking part in the D-Day landings at Normandy; as he wrote to his erstwhile mentor, the Editor of Story magazine Whit Burnett: ‘Am still writing whenever I can find time and an unoccupied foxhole.’ The novel started life as a series of short stories, all narrated by Holden Caulfield. These narratives contain many of the same scenes and characters that later appear in The Catcher in the Rye. However, as Salinger's most recent biographer Kenneth Slawenski notes, these early drafts ‘lack the spiritual force’ of the final novel. Slawenski goes on to observe that ‘it [would] require a spiritual transformation and revelation within the author himself’ for The Catcher in the Rye to be realised in its final form.

On returning to New York in 1946, Salinger began to work seriously on finishing the novel. The same period also saw him commence the increasingly intense study of Chinese and Japanese literature and philosophy, which he would continue to pursue throughout his years as a publishing author. ‘Sonny: An Introduction’, the illuminating contemporary portrait of the author published by Time magazine in 1961, reveals that Salinger was immersed in the study of Eastern literature from the time of his return from the Second World War. The piece describes Salinger as an early pioneer in the study of Zen in America, and also contains the intriguing detail that Salinger was in the habit of giving reading lists on Zen Buddhism to his constantly changing cast of Greenwich Village dates.

There has been some sustained critical attention to the influence of non-Euro-American religion and philosophy on Salinger's work in recent years, particularly in regard to the influence of Zen. However, these critical enquiries often do not focus on the specific sources from which Salinger built up his understanding of Chinese and Japanese literature and thought. Not only was Salinger exclusively reliant on translated versions of Chinese and Japanese texts, limiting his exposure to those that had been translated into English for the American market, he also leaves specific clues in his fiction as to the particular translators and editions that he was familiar with.