Iwaya Sazanami

Iwaya Sazanami

Iwaya Sazanami ( Japanese 巌 谷 小波 real name Iwaya Sueo (巌 谷 季 雄); born July 4, 1870 in Tokyo ; died September 5, 1933 there ) was a Japanese author, known for his storybook editions.

Live and act

The family

Iwaya Sazanami came from a samurai family who had worked as doctors for the Mizuguchi clan in Ōmi province for generations . His older brother Ritsutarō (立 太郎; 1857-1891), who had been sent to Germany in 1877 to study mining at the Freiberg Bergakademie, fell ill and had to return to Japan in 1881. The second son Benjirō (辨 次郎; 1861–1934) studied construction in Tōkyō and in England. He later ran a reinforced concrete company in Tōkyō.

Sazanami

The third son, Sazanami, actually Sueo (季 雄), was supposed to study medicine and therefore learned German from the age of seven, first at home and then at a private school. In 1880 he received the fairy tale book “The youth's favorite fairy tale treasure” from his brother in Germany, written and edited by Otto Spamer . In 1883 he attended the preparatory school for medical studies, but found no pleasure in medicine. From 1885 he attended the "School of the German Association" (独 逸 学 協会 学校), where teachers such as Wilfried Spinner and Otto Hering also taught. In 1887 Sazanami von Hering was baptized Christian.

In 1889 Sasanami met Kitao Jirō (北 尾 次郎; 1853-1907), who had studied physics and mathematics in Germany and who introduced him to German literature. In 1892 Sazanami began working as a feature journalist for the newspaper "Kyōto Hinode Shimbun" (京都 日出 新聞). He also worked for the publishing house Hakubunkan (博 文 館), wrote fairy tales for children's magazines and published a collection of Japanese fairy tales from 1894 to 1869 under the title “Nihon mukashi-banashi” (日本 昔 噺).

Germany

The Hakubunkan publishing house, which published Sazanami's collection “Sekai otogi banashi” (世界 お 伽 話) from 1899, supported Sazanami's wish to get to know Germany by paying for his stay for two years. Sazanami was able to travel to Germany in 1900, where he was received by his brother Benjirō in Berlin. Sazanami was very interested in the theater in Berlin, and also attended opera and circus performances. He worked as a lecturer at the seminar for oriental languages founded in 1887 , was active in the Japanese-German society "Wa-Doku-kai" (和 独 会) and in general in the Japanese colony. He processed his impressions in the “Berlin Sketches”. In September 1902 he traveled back to Japan.

Back again

In Japan, Sazanami took up his work in the publishing house again. He also worked as a lecturer in German literary history at Waseda University . He was appointed to state commissions on subjects such as literature, art, and education. In 1918 he left Hakubunkan as an employee, but remained connected to the publishing house as a consultant. In 1926 he was awarded the Danish Dannebrogorden II class for the dissemination of Andersen's works in Japan. He has lectured not only in Japan, but also in Korea, Taiwan, China and the Philippines.

From 1928 to 1930 his collected works appeared under the title "Sazanami otogi zenshū" (小波 お 伽 全集) in 12 volumes. In 1933 Sazanami fell ill while on a lecture tour and died as a result. He was buried in the Tama Cemetery , Tōkyō.

Remarks

1. ^ The forerunner of today's German-Japanese Society Berlin.

Works

• Berlin sketches and other writings. Edited by Hartmut Walravens with the collaboration of Setsuko Kuwabara. Asia and Africa Studies 40 at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013. ISSN 0948-9789. ISBN 978-3-447-06827-7 .

literature

• Kuwabara, Setsuko: Iwaya Sazanami (1870–1930) - a short biography. In: Berlin sketches. Harrasowitz Verlag, 2013. ISBN 978-3-447-06827-7 .
• S. Noma (Ed.): Iwaya Sazanami . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 644.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Iwaya is the family name, Sazanami the first name.