Wakamatsu Jotaro

Wakamatsu Jōtarō (若 松 丈 太郎; * 1935 in Ōshū ) is a Japanese poet and essayist. Wakamatsu, who comes from the Fukushima prefecture , has achieved national fame through his literary prophecy of a GAU in northeastern Japan after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011 .

Life

Wakamatsu was born in the small town of Ōshū , Iwate Prefecture, in northeastern Japan. After studying at Fukushima University and getting married , he moved to Hara-machi ( Minamisôma City , Fukushima Prefecture) at the age of 28 . He was a Japanese language teacher in Fukushima Prefecture high schools and has been writing poetry since the 1960s. Since the commissioning of the first nuclear power plants in Fukushima in the 1970s, he has drawn attention to the risks of nuclear energy by publishing newspaper articles and engaging in citizens' groups.

In May 1994 Wakamatsu traveled as a member of a local anti-nuclear alliance to the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl power plant that had been damaged eight years earlier . After March 11, 2011 and the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Wakamatsu and his wife briefly fled their place of residence, which is 25 km from the center of the exclusion zone, but returned a few weeks later. He still lives in Hara-machi with his wife. He has a son.

plant

Wakamatsu made his literary debut in 1961 with the volume of poems Yoru no mori (German = The Night Forest), for which he was awarded the Fukushima Prefecture Literature Prize in the year of publication. Many of his early poems and texts were initially self-published or in regional magazines. It was only after the turn of the millennium that his works were published by major Japanese publishers. He gained national attention in 2011 for his critical statements about the risks of nuclear power as well as the anticipation of a meltdown at the nuclear power plant Fukushima , prophesied to Wakamatsu since the mid-1990s and his trip to Chernobyl in poems and essays.

Many of his texts on nuclear issues were reprinted after 2011, especially in the Fukushima genpatsu nanmin collections: Minamisōma-shi - Ichi shijin no keikoku 1971nen ~ 2011nen (German = Fukushima-atomic refugee - Minamisōma ・ The warnings of a poet. 1971– 2011) and Fukushima kakusai kimin: Machi ga merutodaun-shite shimatte (German = those left in the lurch of the Fukushima nuclear disaster: cities that have fallen victim to the meltdown).

In 2014, Waga daichi yo aa (German = Ah, our earth!), The first independent volume of poetry after the “Fukushima” disaster, followed in 2017 a lyrical reworking of his early memories of the Second World War in the anthology Jūsai no natsu made sensō datta (German = War until summer when I was ten years old).

Publications

In addition to his books on Fukushima and its aftermath, Wakamatsu Jōtarō has published poems and autobiographical works. To date, none of his publications have been translated into English or any other language.

literature

• Judith Brandner: The prophet who didn't want to be - Wakamatsu Jōtarō and Fukushima . In: MINIKOMI . 2016. No. 85, pp. 33-42.
• Christian Chappelow: Critical poetry based on 'Fukushima' - Henmi Yō and his collection of poems Me no umi , In: Lisette Gebhardt and Evelyn Schulz (eds.): New concepts of Japanese literature. National literature, literary canon and literary theory . 2014. Berlin: EB-Verlag 2014. pp. 253-276. (Japanese Literature and Culture Series. 8)
• Christian Chappelow: "The cherry blossom in Hansaki" - translation of poems on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of 3/11 . Contribution to the "Textinitiative Fukushima" from March 11th, 2020. Link: http://textinitiative-fukushima.de/
• Andreas Singler: Sayōnara nuclear power. Protests in Japan after "Fukushima" . Berlin: EB-Verlag 2018.