Yoshikichi Furui

Yoshikichi Furui ( Japanese古井 由 吉; Furui Yoshikichi; born November 19, 1937 in Tokyo ; † February 18, 2020 there ) was a Japanese writer and German studies .

Life

Furui was born in the Japanese capital in 1937. He studied German at the University of Tokyo with a BA thesis on Franz Kafka and an MA thesis on Hermann Broch . As a connoisseur of German literature, he translated Hermann Broch and Robert Musil into Japanese. As a university lecturer in German, he taught at Kanazawa University (1962–1964) and Rikkyô University in Tokyo (1965–1970) before embarking on a career as a writer in his early thirties.

Awards

• 1970: Akutagawa Prize for Yōko
• 1987: Kawabata Prize
• 1990: Yomiuri Literature Prize
• 1997: Mainichi Art Prize

After his last award, Furui turned down others.

Literary concept

Together with the authors Kuroi Senji (* 1932) and Ogawa Kunio (1927-2008) he belonged to the so-called generation of inwardness ( naikô no sedai ). The group turned to the spiritual worlds of the individual, which represented a defense against the ideology of economic growth that shaped the official school of thought in the decades after the war; Even the socially engaged or politically conscious literature did not correspond to the ideas of the naikô no sedai. Furui devoted himself to psychoarchaeology; he wanted to fathom a Japanese identity that was fed by the sources of the past. To do this, he went on an ethno-romantic journey to the depths of the country's own culture. Its protagonists led the way to the region. There reality and dream, now and earlier centuries merged for them.

The sociologist Matsuura Yûsuke commented:

"In Furui's works, relationships between contradictory values ​​- such as life / death, health / illness, reason / madness, autonomy / dependency, etc - are quite ambiguous. They never constitute clear-cut dichotomy. These values ​​interpenetrate and their boundaries are blurred. Values ​​coexist, clashing with and melting in each other. The subject who folds these contradictory values ​​within oneself, gets fragile. But Furui dares to tarry with the fragility, because the attempt to overcome it paradoxically brings more serious crisis. The subject chooses to linger on the fragility. "

"In Furui's works, the relationships between conflicting values ​​- such as life / death, health / illness, sanity / insanity, autonomy / dependency, etc. - are rather ambiguous. They never present a clear dichotomy . These values ​​interpenetrate and their limits are Blurred. Values ​​coexist, collide and merge. The subject that carries these contradicting values ​​within itself becomes fragile. But Furui dares to dwell on fragility, because the attempt to overcome it paradoxically brings a more serious one Crisis with itself. The subject chooses to dwell on fragility ".

(Matsuura 2004)

In his late work, which includes the works Hakuhatsu no uta (1996; Weißhaar-Lieder), Funnô (2002; Zorniger Greis) and Kono michi (2019; This my way), he dealt with the experience of war that had shaped him. and post-war years, with the worlds of his generation, with the topic of aging as well as with illness and death. The volume entitled Kotoba no kizashi (2012), which contains an exchange of letters with the writer Saeki Kazumi (* 1959), dealt with the situation in the country after the triple catastrophe of March 11, 2011 .

Furui was an old-school poeta doctus and was considered a demanding author with exceptional language sensitivity and elaborate style, whom his colleagues showed great respect. For a long time, from 1986 to 2005, he was a juror on the selection committee of the renowned Akutagawa Prize.

Works

Novels and short stories

• Enjin wo kumu onnatachi 『円 陣 を 組 む 女 た ち』 Chûôkôronsha 1970, short stories
• Otokotachi no madoi 『男 た ち の 円 居 （ま ど い）』 Kôdansha 1970, short stories
• Yôko / Tsumagomi 『杳 子 ・ 妻 隠 （つ ま ご み）』 Kawade shobo shinsha 1971, short stories
• Yukikagure 『行 隠 れ』 Kawade shobô shinsha 1972, novel
• Mizu 『水』 Kawade shobô shinsha 1973, short stories
• Kushi no hi 『櫛 の 火』 Kawade shobô shinsha 1974, novel
• Hijiri 『聖』 Shinchôsha 1976, novel
• Onnatachi no ie 『女 た ち の 家』 Chûôkôronsha 1977, novel　
• Aihara 『哀 原 （あ い は ら）』 Bungei shunjû 1977, short stories
• Yoru no kaori 『夜 の 香 り』 Shinchôsha 1978, short stories
• Sumika 『栖 （す み か）』 Heibonsha 1979, novel
• Mukudori 『椋 鳥』 Chûôkôronsha 1980, short stories
• Oya 『親』 Heibonsha 1980, novel
• Sansôfu 『山 躁 賦 （さ ん そ う ふ）』 Shûeisha 1982, short stories
• Asagao 『槿 （あ さ が お）』 Fukutake shoten 1983, novel
• Biu 『眉 雨 （び う）』 Fukutake shoten 1986, short stories
• Yoru wa ima 『夜 は い ま』 Fukutake shoten 1987, short stories
• Kari-Ôjôden shibun 『仮 往生 伝 試 文』 Kawade shobô shinsha 1989 、 Roman
• Nagai machi no nemuri 『長 い 町 の 眠 り』 Fukutake shoten 1989, short stories　
• Rakutenki 『楽 天 記』 Shinchôsha 1992, novel
• Yôki na yomawari 『陽 気 な 夜 ま わ り』 Kôdansha 1994, short stories　
• Hakuhatsu no uta 『白 髪 の 唄』 Shinchôsha 1996, novel
• Yoake no ie 『夜 明 け の 家』 Kôdansha 1998, short stories　
• Seiji 『聖 耳 （せ い じ）』 Kôdansha 2000, short stories　
• Funnô 『忿 翁 （ふ ん の う）』 Shinchôsha 2002, novel
• Nogawa 『野 川』 Kôdansha 2004, novel
• Tsuji 『辻』 Shinchôsha 2006, short stories　
• Shirowada 『白 暗 淵 （し ろ わ だ）』 Kôdansha 2007, short stories　
• Yasuraibana 『や す ら い 花』 Shinchôsha 2010, short stories
• Higurashi no koe 『蜩 の 声』 Kôdansha 2011, short stories
• Kane no watari 『鐘 の 渡 り』 Shinchôsha 2014, short stories　
• Ame no suso 『雨 の 裾』 Kôdansha 2015, short stories
• Yuragu tama no o 『ゆ ら ぐ 玉 の 緒』 Shinchôsha 2017, short stories
• Kono michi 『こ の 道』 Kôdansha 2019, short stories

Web links and comments

• Iwamoto Yoshio: Yoshikichi Furui: Copy of the "Introverted Generation". In: Vol. 62, No. 3, Contemporary Japanese Literature (Summer, 1988), pp. 385-390.
•  反復 す る 身体: 古井 由 吉 に お け る 記憶 と 生 (Matsuura Yusuke 2004)
•   古井 由 吉 氏 、 死去 緻密 な 日本語 表現 「作家 の 中 の 作家」
•   古井 由 吉 さ ん 「こ の 道」 イ ン タ ビ ュ ー 泰然 と 、 老 い に 身 を 任 せ
• 作家 の 古井 由 吉 さ ん が 死去 濃密 な 文体 、 内向 の 世代
• 古井 由 吉 さ ん が 死去 濃密 な 文体 、 「杳 子」 で 芥 川 賞
•  鐘 の 渡 り 古井 由 吉 著 深 く 静 か な 内 な る 苦難 の 叫 び (2014)
• 作家 の 古井 由 吉 さ ん が 死去 濃密 な 文体 、 内向 の 世代
• 鐘 の 渡 り 古井 由 吉 著 深 く 静 か な 内 な る 苦難 の 叫 び (2014)
• 「内向 の 世代」 の 代表 的 作家 古井 由 吉 さ ん 死去 (NHK February 27, 2020)
• 内向 の 世代 」の 作家 古井 由 吉 さ ん 死去 82 歳「 杳 子 」で 芥 川 賞 、「 栖 栖 」「 白 髪 の 唄 」

German-language secondary literature on Furui Yoshikichi

• May, Ekkehard (1993): “Afterword”. In: The Saint. Novel . FaM: Insel Verlag, pp. 185–191.
• Wimmer, Erika (2002): “Japan in autumn. Risk and climax or: Walks with Furui Yoshikichi ”. In: Messages from the Brenner Archive 21/2002, pp. 163–166.
• Gebhardt, Lisette (2012): “Furui Yoshikichi.” In: Yomitai! New literature from Japan . Berlin: EB Verlag, pp. 308-311.
• Hiroaki Sekiguchi (2018): “From translation to poetry. Hermann Broch Reception in Yoshikichi Furui's early work ”. In: The literary wren No. 3/2018, pp. 48–52. ( online )

Article in German

Furui Yoshikichi (2001): “Translate and be translated.” In: A Certain Color of Strangeness: Aspects of Translating Japanese-German . Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Irmela (ed.). Munich: Iudicium Verlag, pp. 271-277.

German translations

• Furui Yoshikichi (1993): The Saint. Novel . FaM: Insel Verlag.
• Furui Yoshikichi (1997): Refuge. Novel. Berlin: Quintessenz Verlag.
• Furui Yoshikichi (1990): "The Valley". In: Araki Tadao and Ekkehard May (eds . ): Time of the cicadas. Japanese reading book. Tales of the present . Munich: Piper, pp. 22-42.
• Furui Yoshikichi (1990): Mountains in turmoil (excerpt). In: Berndt, Jürgen and Fukuzawa Hiroomi (eds.): Snapshots of modern Japanese literature. Berlin: Silver and Goldstein, pp. 124–125.

Readings

• From the Nogawa short story collection (2004) . Read by Nobuo Ikeda (Japanese) and Peter Giacomuzzi (German; German translation by Nobuo Ikeda and Lisette Gebhardt).
• 5th International Literature Days Sprachsalz 14. – 16. September 2007

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lisette Gebhardt: Obituary for Furui Yoshikichi. March 2, 2020, accessed June 4, 2020 . 
2. ^ J. Thomas Rimer: The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature . Columbia University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-231-51817-8 ( google.de [accessed April 14, 2020]).
3. ↑ Yoshikichi Furui. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .