Akira Yoshimura

Akira Yoshimura ( Japanese 吉 村 昭 , Yoshimura Akira ; born May 1, 1927 in Nippori , Kitatoshima-gun (today: Higashi-Nippori, Arakawa ), Tokyo Prefecture ; † July 31, 2006 ) was a Japanese writer. He was married to the writer Tsumura Setsuko .

He was the chairman of the Japanese Writers' Association and a member of the PEN . Of his over 20 novels, in particular, Inextinguishable and Shipwrecked are internationally known and have also been translated into German. In his novel Hagoku ( Eng . " Breakout ") he describes the true story of the murderer Yoshie Shiratori (1907-1979), who escaped from prison four times and who developed into an antihero in Japan . The novel won the Yomiuri Literature Prize in 1984 . Yoshimura is considered an outstanding representative of documentary literature ( 記録 文学 , kiroku bungaku ) and historical novels ( 歴 史 小説 , rekishi shōsetsu ). Unlike his fellow writer Shiba Ryōtarō , however, Yoshimura was based on collected facts and less on the fictional design.

Life

Yoshimura was born in 1927 as the eighth child of a cotton mill manager. From 1940 on he attended the Kaisei Elementary School in Tokyo. During elementary school he began reading classical Japanese literature under the guidance of private tutors. Although he was often absent from school due to lung complaints and pleurisy , he was able to finish school early in March 1945 due to a special regulation in times of war. However, since his performance in the school drill exercises was insufficient, he could not initially switch to a secondary school, but had to attend a preparatory school.

In 1944 Yoshimura's mother died of uterine cancer, followed by his father in December 1945, who also died of cancer. Although Yoshimura had successfully passed the entrance exam for the humanities department of a high school, under the impression that the death of his parents had made, he decided to switch to the natural sciences, failed the exam and had to attend the preparatory school again. He also began to write haiku under the guidance of his teacher Iwata Kurō .

After Yoshimura coughed blood in January 1948, eight months later he had to undergo thoracoplasty with a rib section at Tokyo University Hospital. The illness and the subsequent treatment led to the discontinuation of his training efforts. It was not until April 1950, after the school system had been reformed, that Yoshimura enrolled at a college for literature. In 1952 he became chairman of a literary club and his first short novel appeared, which he dedicated to Yasunari Kawabata and Motojirō Kaiji . In the same year he met another literary group through his teacher Iwata, whose sempai Yukio Mishima gave him a signed copy of his work Confession of a Mask .

While Yoshimura was enthusiastic about the lectures, he was hardly able to achieve the required performance in the compulsory subject physical exercise. So it happened that he was de-registered from the university in 1953 and worked briefly in a spinning mill where his older brother was employed. He married the writer Tsumura Setsuko , whom he knew from literary circles. He took an office job and published in the literary magazine Bungakusha under the direction of Niwa Fumio and in the literary magazine Z under the direction of Oda Jinjirō further short novels ( Tampenshōsetsu ). His debut novel Mikkai ( 密 会 ) was published in mid-1958 . In early 1959, Yoshimura was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize with Tekkyō ( 鉄 橋 ), and six months later with Kaigara ( 貝殻 ). Two more nominations followed immediately, but instead of an award, his wife Setsuko received the Akutagawa Prize for her work Gangu in 1965 .

In 1966, Yoshimura received the Dazai Osamu Prize for Hoshi e no tabi ( 星 へ の 旅 , for example: Journey to the Stars ), which was followed by many other awards. In 1997 Yoshimura and in 2003 his wife Setsuko became members of the Japanese Academy of Arts . In 2005, tongue cancer was diagnosed and, after positron emission tomography , pancreatic cancer was also found. On July 31, 2006, Yoshimura died at his home at the age of 79. The last manuscript Shinigao ( 死 顔 ) was published posthumously in the literary magazine Shinchō .

Yoshimura, who is especially known for his documentary literature , had in 1970 with Umi no kabe: Sanriku kaigan ōtsunami (for example: "A wall of sea: The great tsunamis on the Sanriku coast ") presented a bestseller, the three earthquakes and Tsunamis, the Meiji-Sanriku earthquake of 1896 , the Shōwa-Sanriku earthquake of 1933, and the Valdivia earthquake of 1960 . The book was published again in 1984 by Chūōkōron- Verlag with a shortened title (without Umi no kabe ). The book, which had a total print run of 49,000 copies, aroused so much interest after the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011 that 50,000 reprints were delivered within a few months.

Prizes and awards

• 1966 Dazai Osamu Prize
• 1973 Kikuchi Kan Prize
• 1984 Mainichi Art Prize
• 1985 Yomiuri Literature Prize
• 1987 Japanese Academy of Arts Prize
• 1994 Osaragi Jirō Prize
• 2006 Order of the Rising Sun

Works (selection)

• 1966 Senkan Musashi ( 戦 艦 武 蔵 , roughly: "The battleship Musashi")
• 1967 Mizu no sōretsu ( 水 の 葬 列 )
• 1970 Umi no kabe sanriku kaigan ōtsunami ( 海 の 壁 三 陸 沿岸 大 津 波 )
• 1978 Tōi hi no sensō ( 遠 い 日 の 戦 争 )
• 1979 Pōtsumasu no hata ( ポ ー ツ マ ス の 旗 , roughly: "The flags of Portsmouth")
• 1982 rabbits ( 破船 )
  • German shipwreck , translated by Sabine Mangold . Berlin, Rowohlt 1998, ISBN 978-3-87134-286-8
• 1983 Hagoku ( 破 獄 )
• 1988 Karishakuhō ( 仮 釈 放 )
  • dt. Indelible , translated by Sabine Mangold. Munich, CH Beck 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-48702-6
• 1989 Yami ni hirameku ( 闇 に ひ ら め く )
• 1998 Namamugi jiken ( 生 麦 事件 , Namamugi incident )
• Akira Yoshimura: The Great Tsunami of the Sanriku Coast. Documentary literature by Yoshimura Akira (1927–2006) . Ed .: Harald Meyer (=  ERGA series on the history of Asia . Volume 11 ). Iudicium, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-86205-211-0 (Documentary material mainly on the earthquake of 1896, which, among other things, still comes from contemporary witnesses. Also information on the earthquake of 1856 and 1933.).
• 2015 flowers in the snow. A historical narrative. Translated from the Japanese by Gerhard Bierwirth and Arno Moriwaki. Iudicium. ISBN 978-3-86205-429-9

Film adaptations

• 1997: The eel , according to the story Yami ni hirameku

Web links

• Short biography and reviews of works by Akira Yoshimura at perlentaucher.de
• Information ( memento from February 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) of the Akira Yoshimura Literature Museum in the Arakawa district of Tokyo (Japanese)
• Book review of Inextinguishable in Time
• Book review of Indelible at salon.com (English)
• Book review by shipwreck in the New York Times (English)
• Meeting of shipwreck at asianreviewofbooks.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Website ( memento of September 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) of the Literature Museum for Akira Yoshimura in Arakawa (Japanese)
2. ↑ Website ( memento of July 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) from Arakawa - image of the memorial stone for 星 へ の 旅 in the literary museum for Akira Yoshimura
3. ↑ Short biography and works at asahi.net (Japanese)
4. ↑ Biographical note on the website of the Shinchō-sha publishing house (Japanese)
5. ↑ Asahi.com ( Memento from May 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (Japanese)