was a Japanese

Christian socialist A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words ''Christ'' and ''Chr ...

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

Biography

Kinoshita was a native of

Matsumoto, Nagano is a Cities of Japan, city located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Matsumoto is designated as a Core cities of Japan, core city since 1 April 2021. , the city had a population of 239,466 in 105,207 households and a population density of 240 perso ...

. After graduating from the predecessor of

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

, he returned to Nagano to work as a journalist and lawyer. He later converted to Christianity. Due to his support of the women’s rights movement and advocacy of social issues (particularly the

Ashio Copper Mine The was a copper mine located in the town of Ashio, Tochigi (now part of the city of Nikkō, Tochigi), in the northern Kantō region of Japan. It was the site of Japan's first major pollution disaster in the 1880s and the scene of the 1907 ...

Incident), he was jailed. In 1901, Kinoshita joined

Abe Isoo was a Japanese Christian socialist, parliamentarian and pacifist. He largely contributed to development of baseball in Japan, and was called "Father of Japanese baseball." He created a baseball club of Waseda University. Early life and educa ...

, Katayama Sen,

Kōtoku Shūsui , better known by the pen name , was a Japanese socialist and anarchist who played a leading role in introducing anarchism to Japan in the early 20th century. Historian John Crump described him as "the most famous socialist in Japan". He was ...

, and Kawakami Kiyoshi in founding the ''

Shakai Minshūtō The (a more accurate translation of the Japanese name would be "Social People's Party", but this naming is common in English texts) was a political party in Japan between 1926 and 1932. Amongst the three main proletarian parties in Japan at the ...

'' (Social Democratic Party). The new political party was quickly banned by the authorities. From 1903, he was an editor of the ''

Heimin Shimbun was a socialist and anti-war daily newspaper established in Japan in November 1903, as the newspaper of the Heimin-sha group. It was founded by Kōtoku Shūsui and Sakai Toshihiko, as a pacifist response to the approaching Russo-Japanese War. ...

,'' a leftist newspaper co-founded by Kōtoku. In 1904, Kinoshita wrote articles critical of the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...

, and in 1905 unsuccessful ran for election. After the ''Heimin Shimbun'' was suppressed by the government, he began to write for the ''Shin Kigen'' Christian-socialist magazine. He wrote regularly for

Fukuda Hideko , , was a Japanese feminist activist. She was educated at a young age and pursued socialist and feminist goals for most of her adult life. She was a participant in the Osaka Incident of 1885, where approximately 130 liberal activists were arre ...

's socialist women's magazine ''Sekai Fujin'' from 1907 to 1909. His anti-war novel, ''Pillar of Fire'' was banned by the government in 1910. He continued to write pacifist and socialist themed novels for the remainder of his career and in his final years was attracted by attempts to form a union of Christianity with Buddhism. Kinoshita was also instrumental in abolishing licensed prostitution in Japan.http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/599.html Kinoshita Naoe

Works

Novels

* (1904-1906), translated into English by

Kenneth Strong Major-General Sir Kenneth William Dobson Strong (9 September 1900 – 11 January 1982) was a senior officer of the British Army who served in the Second World War, rising to become Director General of Intelligence. A graduate of the Royal Mil ...

* (1904) * (1907-1908) * (1908) * (1908) * (1909) * (1910)

Other

* (1906) * (1907) * (1907) * (1907) * (1907) * (1907) * (1907) * (1908) * (1909) * (1910) * (1911) * (1911) * (1912) * (1921) * (1934)

References

*Janet Hunter
"Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History"
University of California Press, 1984, , S. 93 *John Scott Miller
"Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater"
Scarecrow Press, 2009, , S. 53 1869 births 1937 deaths Japanese Protestants Japanese Christian socialists Japanese writers Japanese journalists Waseda University alumni Japanese Christian pacifists Activists from Matsumoto, Nagano {{japan-writer-stub

Biography

Works

Novels

Other

See also

References