Takahashi Kenji (literary scholar)

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Takahashi Kenji ( Japanese 高橋 健 二 ; * August 18, 1902 in Kyōbashi , Tokyo ; † March 2, 1998 ) was a Japanese German studies scholar and translator in particular of the works of Hermann Hesse and Erich Kästner , who he tried to introduce in Japan. From 1977 to 1981 he was chairman of the Japanese PEN center .

Takahashi was known to Ozaki Hotsumi while he was in high school in Tokyo . After graduating from school, he began studying German at the Imperial University of Tokyo , which he completed in 1925. After completing his studies, he taught German at the Seikei High School, which later became the Seikei University . In 1931 he traveled to Germany, met Hermann Hesse in Switzerland and had been in correspondence with Erich Kästner, whom he also got to know personally in Munich in 1953, since the 1930s.

In 1936 the Anti-Comintern Pact was signed between Japan and Germany, Italy joined in 1937, and in 1940 the three Axis powers signed the three-power pact . During this time, Takahashi headed the propaganda department of the Taisei Yokusankai ( Support Society for Imperial Rule ). As part of his work for the support society , he also made Nazi literature known in Japan by publishing various writings, such as literature and culture - reviews and essays . After the war, he was appointed to Chūō University in 1951 and was awarded the Yomiuri Literature Prize (category: research / translations) in 1958 for his services to German literature . Further awards followed for his research on Hesse and for youth literature editions of the works of Kästner and the Brothers Grimm. In 1969 he was awarded the Japanese Academy of Arts Prize , and four years later he became a member of the Academy . At the end of the 1970s he was head of the Japanese PEN center. In 1985 he was named a Person of Special Cultural Merit .

Works (selection)

  • 1931 Heine
  • 1942 Bungaku to bunka hyōron to zuihitsu ( 文学 と 文化 評論 と 随筆 , literature and culture - reviews and essays )
  • 1992 Kestonā no shōgai - Dorēsuden no Teiko sakka ( ケストナーの生涯ドレースデンの抵抗作家, Kastner's Life - A Dresden Resistance writer ) Fukutake Shoten, Tōkyō 1992, ISBN 4-8288-3239-4 (expanded paperback edition of the first publication in Shinshindō Shuppan, Osaka 1981)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 高橋 健 二 . In: デ ジ タ ル 版 日本人 名 大 辞典 + Plus at kotobank.jp. Retrieved April 22, 2013 (Japanese).
  2. ^ Naoji Kimura : The East-West Goethe: German language culture in Japan . In: German East Asian Studies on Intercultural Literature Studies . tape 2 . Peter Lang AG, 2006, ISBN 3-03910-610-4 , ISSN  1660-8682 ( limited preview in the Google book search).

literature

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Takahashi is the family name, Kenji the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Takahashi, Kenji
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 高橋 健 二 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese German studies specialist and translator
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Kyōbashi , Tokyo
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1998