Muro Saisei

Muro Saisei

Murō Saisei ( Japanese 室 生 犀 星 ; born August 1, 1889 in Kanazawa , Ishikawa Prefecture ; † March 26, 1962 in Tokyo ), actually Obata Terumichi ( 小 畠 照 道 ), was a Japanese poet, storyteller and novelist.

Live and act

Murō was born the illegitimate son of a former feudal officer and was adopted into the Murō family at the age of 6. In his youth he worked as an errand boy in a district court. His superior, who also taught haiku, introduces him to literature.

In 1910 Murō left Kanazawa and went to Tōkyō. There he got to know Kitahara Hakushū and Hagiwara Sakutarō through his contributions to the magazine "Zamboa" (朱 欒, a kind of grapefruit) . He was soon appreciated as a born lyric poet who wrote short poems in a free style and in a slightly unorthodox classical language. In 1916 he founded the poetry magazine Kanjō ( 感情 ) together with Hagiwara Sakutarō .

After his marriage in 1918 Murō came into contact with Akutagawas , under whose influence he began to write lyrical, autobiographical novels. Works from this period are “From my childhood” (幼年 の 時代, Yōnen no jidai), “When I woke up to sex” (性 に 目 覚 め る こ ろ; Sei ni mezameru koro) and “The death of a certain girl” (あ る 少女 の死 ま で, Aru shōjo no shi made). They all appeared in 1919. After that, he increasingly lost contact with the development of literature in Japan.

Murō's longest story, "Apricot Girl" (杏子 、 Anzukko) was awarded the Yomiuri Prize in 1958 . At the end of his creative period there is a life story "Kagerō no nikki ibun" (か げ ろ ふ の 日記 遺 文), ​​in which the image of one's own mother is superimposed on that of other women and the deep longing for her is formed. In 1959 he received the Noma Prize for this work.

In 1960 Murō donated the Murō Saisei Poetry Prize .

Works (selection)

• Ai no Shinshū (1918) - (love songs)
• Jojō Shōkyokushū (1918) - (Lyric Melodies)
• Ani imotō (1934) - ( Eng . "Brother and sister", 1965)
• Anzukko (1957) - ("The Apricot Girl")
• Kagerō no Nikki Ibun (1959) - (Postscript to Kagerō Nikki d. I. "The Diary of a Mayfly", around 975 by Fujiwara no Michitsuna no Haha )

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Muroo Saisei . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1021.

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