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Haruo Umezaki - Wikipedia
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Haruo Umezaki

Haruo Umezaki (梅崎うめさき春生はるお, Umezaki Haruo, February 15, 1915 – July 19, 1965) was a Japanese writer of short stories and novels.[1]

Haruo Umezaki
Haruo Umezaki in 1950
Haruo Umezaki in 1950
Born(1915-02-15)February 15, 1915
Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan
DiedJuly 19, 1965(1965-07-19) (aged 50)
Tokyo, Japan
OccupationWriter
NationalityJapanese
Alma materTokyo Imperial University
Period1939–1965

Biography

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Born in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Umezaki studied at the 5th High School of Kumamoto University, later at the Tokyo Imperial University where he majored in Japanese literature.[1] He then worked at the same Tokyo University in the Faculty of Education Sciences (kyōiku). In 1944, he was drafted as a crypto specialist for the Imperial Japanese Navy and stationed in Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyushu, an experience which he later dramatised in his famous novella Sakurajima, published in 1946.[2] He came back on this experience in his latest book, Genka (Illusions) published in 1965, the year of his death.

After the war, he worked for the Sunao (素直すなお) magazine, led by poet and social activist Shin'ichi Eguchi (1914–1979),[3] in which Sakurajima and some of his short stories were published. Sakurajima established Umezaki as a representative of Japanese postwar literature along writers like Hiroshi Noma and Rinzō Shiina.[1][4] The war theme later gave way to satirical stories like Boroya no shunjū,[5][6] and still later to the examination of human anxiety in modern society.[6]

Umezaki died of liver cirrhosis in Tokyo on 19 July 1965.[1]

Selected works

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  • Fūen (風ふう宴えん), 1939.
  • Sakurajima (桜さくら島とう), 1946.
  • Hi no hate (日にちの果はて, End of the Sun), 1947.
  • Kuroi hana (黒くろい花はな, Black Flower), 1950.
  • Nise no kisetsu (Season of forgery), 1954.
  • Boroya no shunjū (ボロ家かの春秋しゅんじゅう, Shanty Life or Occurrences of an Old Dilapidated House), 1954.
  • Suna dokei (砂時計すなどけい, The Hourglass), 1955.
  • Tsumujikaze (つむじ風かぜ), 1957.
  • Kurui-dako (狂きょうひ凧だこ), 1963.
  • Genka (幻まぼろし化か, Illusions), 1965.

Awards

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Adaptations

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Films

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "梅崎うめさき春生はるお (Haruo Umezaki)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  2. ^ "桜さくら島とう (Sakurajima)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  3. ^ Koga, Akira (2004). 小説しょうせつの相貌そうぼう: 「読よみの共振きょうしん運動うんどう論ろん」の試こころみ. Kagoshima: Nanpo Shinsha. p. 251.
  4. ^ "戦後せんご文学ぶんがく (Postwar literature)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  5. ^ Frédéric, Louis (2002). Japan Encyclopedia. Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 1014. ISBN 978-0-67400770-3.
  6. ^ a b New Orient. Vol. 7. Czechoslovak Society for Eastern Studies. 1968. p. 26.

Further reading

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  • Kumamoto University Prominent Alumni – Haruo Umezaki : http://ewww.kumamoto-u.ac.jp/dept/fifth/alumni/
  • Erik R. Lofgren: Democratizing Illnesses: Umezaki Haruo, Censorship, and Subversion. In: Comparative Literature. 52, no 2, 2000, p. 157–178
  • Scott J. Miller: Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater. In: Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the arts. Bd. 33, Scarecrow Press, Maryland 2009
  • Kyle Grossman, Pomona College: Authors and Soldiers: Reconstructing History in Postwar Japan, 2012. At Claremont.edu.
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