was a Japanese poet and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

. According to prominent historian

Ann Waswo Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie and Ana. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in t ...

, Nagatsuka Takashi was born into a landowning family. Nagatsuka was born in

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,828,086 (1 July 2023) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in Kosshō Village (国生村), itself in Ishige Town ( 石下町), which forms modern day Joso City ( 常総市). In 1896, poor health forced him to stop his middle-school education in Mito. In accordance with his duties as eldest son, he assisted his mother Taka in managing their six acres of

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

. He started experimenting in 1905 with different fertilizers, crop-rotation, charcoal-production, and commercial-grade bamboo-production. These are just some of his attempts to save the family's finances from the political career of his father Genjiro (who was elected during the late 1880s to the prefectural assembly), since he tended to absorb other people's debts. In

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, he studied poetry with

Masaoka Shiki , pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡升), was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry, credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during ...

from 1900 until 1902, when Shiki died of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

. His only novel ''The Soil'' ("''土;"'' "''Tsuchi''") was published in 151-installment series from June–November of 1910 in the ''Tokyo Asahi Shimbun'' ( 東京朝日新聞), which eventually became today's ''

Asahi Shimbun is a Japanese daily newspaper founded in 1879. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. The ''Asahi Shimbun'' is one of the five largest newspapers in Japan along with the ''Yom ...

''. Two years after its newspaper serialization, ''The Soil'' was published as a complete work in book form in 1912. The novel depicts life in rural Japan and in Kosshō Village. The characters are based on actual people, although their names are altered. The novel's copyright expired in the mid-1960s. He died of laryngeal

on February 8, 1915.

Major works

*''Shirakuchi no hana'' (しらくちの花 ) *''Sumiyaki no musume'' (炭焼のむすめ) *''Tajuu to sono inu'' (太十と其犬) *''Nagatsuka Takashi Kashu (''長塚節歌集),

tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the influential poetry anthology (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to disti ...

collection *''Rinshitsu no kyaku'' (隣室の客) *''Tsuchi'' (土) *''The Soil'', translated by Ann Waswo,

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 1989,

References

External links

List of available e-texts of Takashi Nagatsuka's works

Aozora Bunko Aozora Bunko (, , also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousand works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-of-copyright books or works that t ...

(in Japanese). Retrieved 20 May 2025. * * 1879 births 1915 deaths 20th-century Japanese poets 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Japan {{Japan-writer-stub

Major works

See also

References

External links