was a Japanese writer.
Life
Tokuda was born in
Kanazawa
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was .
Overview Cityscape
...
in
Ishikawa Prefecture.
Coming from a family of the former feudal nobility, Tokuda began his literary life as a follower of the writer
Ozaki Kōyō, who was four years his senior and had already established himself as a literary man in the late 1880s. Their relationship wasn't to last long, though, with Kōyō dying in 1903, after which Tokuda began to move from Kōyō's style of romanticism into a mixture of naturalism and the confessional known as "Shizen-shugi", an example of which is his 1908 novel ''Arajotai'' (新世帯), which dealt with the frustrations of a young working-class couple.
After the publication of ''Ashiato'' (足迹) in 1910, Tokuda would release his most autobiographical work, ''Kabi'' (黴), in 1911, a classic example of the Japanese genre known as the "
I-novel
The I-novel (, , ) is a literary genre in Japanese literature used to describe a type of confessional literature where the events in the story correspond to events in the author's life. This genre was founded based on the Japanese reception of ...
". He followed with the novel ''Rough Living'' (''Arakure'', あらくれ) in 1915.
After the death of his wife in 1926, Tokuda began a series of relationships with younger women, which would inspire his later works, especially his best-known, ''Kasō jinbutsu'' (仮装人物), released from 1935 to 1938, as well as the unfinished ''Shukuzu'' (縮図) from 1941.
Legacy
A number of Tokuda's works were adapted into films in Japan.
A monument honoring Tokuda was erected near the summit of
Mount Utatsu in 1947. The monument features writing authored by poet
Murō Saisei and was designed by architect
Yoshirō Taniguchi
was a Japanese architect. He was born in the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. He was a graduate of Tokyo University Department of Architecture and professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology from 1929 - 1965. As an architect, he crea ...
.
Selected works
* 1910: ''Ashiato''
* 1911: ''Kabi''
* 1915: ''Rough Living'' (''Arakure'')
* 1933: ''The Town's Dance Hall'' (''Machi no odoriba'')
* 1935: ''Order of the White Paulownia'' (''Kunshō'')
* 1935–1938: ''Kasō jinbutsu''
* 1941: ''Shukuzu'' (unfinished)
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
Adaptations (selected)
* 1953: ''
Epitome'' (''Shukuzu''), director
Kaneto Shindō
was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and writer, who directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238. His best known films as a director include ''Children of Hiroshima'', ''The Naked Island'', '' Onibaba'', ''Kuroneko'' an ...
* 1957: ''
Untamed'' (''Arakure''), director
Mikio Naruse
was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967.
Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily shomin-geki ("common people drama") films with female protagonists, ...
* 1962: ''Stolen Pleasure'' (''Tadare''), director
Yasuzō Masumura
References
External links
*
*
*
*
1872 births
1943 deaths
Japanese writers
People from Kanazawa, Ishikawa
{{Japan-writer-stub