Kenichi Yoshida
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kenichi Yoshida | |
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 Yoshida Kenichi |
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| Born | 1 April 1912 Tokyo, Japan |
| Died | 3 August 1977 (aged 65) Yokohama, Japan |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Genres | novels, English literature translations |
Kenichi Yoshida (吉田 健一 Yoshida Kenichi?, 1 April 1912 - 3 August 1977) was a Japanese author and literary critic in Showa period Japan.
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[edit] Early life
Yoshida was born in Tokyo, and was the son of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. His mother was the daughter of Count Makino Nobuaki. He spent his childhood abroad, accompanying his diplomat father to postings in China, France, and the United Kingdom. He studied English literature at Cambridge University, but left school without graduating, returned to Japan after one year. His début as a writer was in 1935 with a translation of Edgar Allan Poe's Memorandum (Oboegaki).
[edit] Literary career
In 1939, together Nakamura Mitsuo and Yamamoto Kenkichi, Yoshida co-founded the literary magazine Hihyō, which published critiques of modern French and British authors. From the late 1940s, Yoshida has a prolific output, with works ranging from translations of William Shakespeare and Charles Baudelaire and English literature to fiction, with short stories and novels, including some lighter works including Saisho Onzoshi Hinkyusu (宰相御曹司貧窮す Prime Minister's Son Falls on Hard Times?). The work Saisho Onzoshi Hinkyusu was titled by publisher against his wishes, so he also published a private edition the same work under the alternate title Detarameron.
Yoshida lived in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture between 1946 and 1953, and afterwards kept up a long correspondence with various of the Kamakura literati, including Ishikawa Jun, Ooka Shohei, Kobayashi Hideo, Mishima Yukio, and Nakamura Mitsuo. He died in 1977 at the age of 65; his grave is located at the Kuboyama Reien in Yokohama.
Due to his upbringing in Europe, Yoshida is said to have thought in English rather than in Japanese.
[edit] References
- Kato, Shuichi. A History of Japanese Literature. RoutledgeCurzon (1997) ISBN 1873410484
