Kafū Nagai | |
---|---|
Born | Sōkichi Nagai 3 December 1879 Tokyo, Japan |
Died | 30 April 1959 Ichikawa, Japan | (aged 79)
Occupation | Writer, translator, editor |
Education | Junior High School |
Literary movement | Naturalism, Aestheticism |
Kafū Nagai (永井 荷風, Nagai Kafū, 3 December 1879 – 30 April 1959) was a Japanese writer, editor and translator. [1] His works like Geisha in Rivalry and A Strange Tale from East of the River are noted for their depictions of life of the demimonde in early 20th-century Tokyo. [2]
Nagai was born Sōkichi Nagai (永井 壮吉) in Koishikawa, Bunkyō, Tokyo, as the eldest son of government official Kyūichirō Nagai [1] [3] and his wife Tsune, the daughter of scholar Washizu Kidō. [4] His father was an elite government official in the Home Ministry, who had studied as an exchange student in the United States [1] and also wrote and published Chinese poetry. [5] Kyūichirō later left his Ministry occupation to work for the Nippon Yusen shipping company. [2] When the second son was born in 1883, Nagai was sent to live with his maternal grandmother until 1886. [5] During his childhood, he visited a Chinese language school, and, under his mother's influence, was taught singing and playing music instruments, showing a fondness for utazawa, a late Edo era style of singing accompanied by the shamisen. [5] Starting in 1890, he was also taught English language. [5]
Due to illness, Nagai spent several months in 1895 in a hospital in Odawara. [6] From 1897 on, he started his regular visits to the Yoshiwara red-light district, accompanied by his friend and writer Seiichi Inoue (1878–1923). [5] The same year, he graduated from Junior High School. [1] With his mother and younger brothers, he visited Shanghai, where his father was working for Nippon Yusen. [6] He returned to Japan in Autumn and enrolled in the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages. [1] [3]
In 1898, he published his first short story Sudare no tsuki. [5] He became a disciple of novelist Hirotsu Ryūrō and writer Fukuchi Ōchi, studied rakugo and kabuki play writing, appeared on stage in yose plays, and dropped out of University. [1] [5] His writings were influenced by French Naturalism and Émile Zola, whose work he also translated. [5] Between 1903 and 1908, through his father's influence, Nagai visited the United States and later France, a time which he wrote down in his American Storiesa [ jp] (Amerika monogatari) and Furansu monogatari (lit. "French Stories"). [5] The 1908 publication of American Stories met with much critical acclaim. [1]
In 1910, Nagai started teaching as a professor of literature at Keio University and became the editor of the literary magazine Mita Bungaku. [1] At this time, he had already turned away from Naturalism and taken a shift towards Aestheticism. [1] [3] [5] The transition from the Meiji era to the Taishō era was also a turning point in Nagai's life: the death of his father, the divorce from both his first and second wife [1] (the second marriage—to a geisha led—to the alienation from his mother), [2] and the resigning from his position at Keio University and Mita Bungaku. [1] A frequenter of Tokyo's demimonde, Nagai wrote many stories about its inhabitants, geisha, courtesans and their customers, most notably Geisha in Rivalry (1916–17). [2]
After a decade-long hiatus, he published the novellas During the Rains (1931), Flowers in the Shade (1934) and A Strange Tale from East of the River (1937), with the latter having repeatedly been cited as his major work. [2] [7] His contempt for the militarist regime, which in turn regarded his work as subversive for the war effort, led to a halt of the publishing of his writings until the end of World War II. [1] [2] The publication of his diaries (1917–1959) ranks as the major literary event of his post-war career. [2]
In 1952, Nagai received the Order of Culture, and in 1954, he was elected a member of the Japan Art Academy. [1] He died on 30 April 1959. [1] [2]