Kawaguchi Matsutaro

Kawaguchi Matsutaro

Kawaguchi Matsutarō ( Japanese 川口 松 太郎 ; * 1899 in Asakusa , Tokyo ; † 1985 ) is a Japanese storyteller, playwright, screenwriter and film producer.

Life

Kawaguchi Matsutarō worked in the pawn shop and later in a publishing house before he became known as an author. In the beginning he wrote poems ( haikus ). In 1935 he won the Naoki Prize , which made his works known in Japan. His love novel Aizen Katsura became a bestseller and made Kawaguchi popular in Japan. After the Second World War, Kawaguchi continued his literary activity and published plays and novels. He won other awards such as B. the literature prize Yoshikawa-Eiji-Preis for his book Shigurejaya Oriku (The Beloved Oriku).

In 1973 he was named Bunka Kōrōsha, a person with special cultural merits .

plant

Kawaguchi's novels are often set in famous settings and in places of entertainment and amusement. Many of his novels became bestsellers and served as models for films and songs.

Shigurejaya Oriku (The Beloved Oriku - Tales from a Tea House) contains ten more or less coherent stories, connected by the place Shigurejaya and the person Oriku. Oriku is the owner of the Shigurejaya , a rough "tea house" in the red light district of Tokyo. At a young age, Oriku was sold to a brothel owner and became his mistress. But Oriku soon owns her own tea house. She runs this business in her own way: she introduces young men to love, she doesn't take money and she doesn't sleep with men she doesn't like. As a result, their personality and humanity remain recognizable: warmth and cleverness. Oriku strives to master her own life for the benefit of others. Shigurejaya Oriku is full of nostalgia and longing for a bygone age.

Other works

• A woman (narration, 1946)
• Ghost stories from Yotsuya (narration, 1947)
• The murdered woman (story, 1949)
• A bell in Fukagawa (narration)

literature

• Oscar Benl (Ed.): A Bell in Fukagawa. Horst Erdmann Verlag, Stuttgart 1964

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Kawaguchi is the family name, Matsutarō the first name.