was a Japanese poet, novelist, and translator. He was a member of the

Japan Art Academy is the highest-ranking official artistic organization in Japan. It is established as an extraordinary organ of the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (文化庁, Bunkacho) in the thirty-first article of the law establishing the Ministry of ...

Biography

Born in

Okayama City is the capital city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. The Okayama metropolitan area, centered around the city, has the largest urban employment zone in the Chugoku region of western Japan. The city was founded on June 1, ...

, Iijima graduated from the French Literature Department of

Tokyo University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

. While in university he established together with, among others, Isamu Kurita the magazine ''Cahier''. In 1956, he and

Makoto Ōoka , Poetry International, 2006 () was a Japanese poet and literary critic. He pioneered the collaborative poetic form renshi in the 1990s,"Why Millions in Japan Read All About Poetry" ''New York Times''. March 6, 2000. Awards Source: *1993: Cult ...

were among the founders of the Surrealism Research Society. In 1953, he published his first collection of poems, ''Tanin no sora'' ("Another person's sky"). In 2008, he was elected a member of the Japan Art Academy. He also worked as a professor at

Meiji University is a Private university, private research university in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Originally founded as Meiji Law School () by three lawyers in 1881, it became a university in April 1920. As of May 2023, Meiji has 32,261 undergradu ...

and

Kokugakuin University Kokugakuin University , abbreviated as ''Kokugakudai'' () or ''Kokudai'' (), is a Shinto-affiliated private research university in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. The university consists of undergraduate departments in humanities and social sciences and ...

. He translated or wrote about

Henri Barbusse Henri Barbusse (; 17 May 1873 – 30 August 1935) was a French novelist, short story writer, journalist, poet and political activist. He began his literary career in the 1890s as a Symbolist poet and continued as a neo-Naturalist novelist; i ...

Antonin Artaud Antoine Maria Joseph Paul Artaud (; ; 4September 18964March 1948), better known as Antonin Artaud, was a French artist who worked across a variety of media. He is best known for his writings, as well as his work in the theatre and cinema. Widely ...

Brassaï Brassaï (; pseudonym of Gyula Halász, ; 9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerou ...

, Joan Miró i Ferrà,

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, so ...

Marcel Aymé Marcel Aymé (; 29 March 1902 – 14 October 1967) was a French novelist and playwright, who also wrote screenplays and works for children. Biography Marcel André Aymé was born in Joigny, in the Burgundy region of France, the youngest ...

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

, etc. He died on October 14, 2013, at a Tokyo hospital of

malabsorption Malabsorption is a state arising from abnormality in absorption of food nutrients across the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Impairment can be of single or multiple nutrients depending on the abnormality. This may lead to malnutrition and a varie ...

syndrome.

Personal life

He is the father of architecture critic Yōichi Iijima.

Awards

*Takami Jun Award for ''ゴヤのファースト・ネームは'' (''Goya no first name wa'') (1974) *Tōson kinen rekitei Award for ''飯島耕一詩集'' (''Iijima Kōichi shishũ'') (1978) *Gendai shijin Award for ''夜を夢想する小太陽の独言'' (''Yoru wo musōsuru shotaiyō no dokugen'') (1983) *Bunkamura Prix des Deux Magots for ''暗殺百美人'' (''Ansatsu hyaku bijin'') (1996) *

Yomiuri Prize The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shimbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone. Award categories For the first two years, ...

for ''アメリカ'' (''America'') (2005) *Nihon gendai ishika bungakukan Award (2005)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iijima, Koichi 1930 births 2013 deaths Japanese scholars of French literature 20th-century Japanese poets 20th-century Japanese novelists 21st-century Japanese novelists 20th-century Japanese translators Deaths from digestive disease