Jun Etō | |
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 Jun Etō in 1965 | |
| Born | 25 December 1932 Tokyo Japan |
| Died | 21 July 1999 (aged 66) Kamakura, Kanagawa Japan |
| Occupation | Writer, literary critic |
| Genre | Literary criticism |
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Jun Etō (江藤 淳, Etō Jun, 25 December 1932 – 21 July 1999) was the pen name of a Japanese literary critic, active in the Shōwa and early Heisei periods of Japan. His real name was Egashira Atsuo (江頭 淳夫).
Etō was born in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo; his father was a banker, and his grandfather (originally from Saga in Kyūshū) was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy. His mother died when he was four years old, and always sickly as a child, he was mostly educated at home. He had an interest in literature from an early age, ranging from the heavy works of Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Fyodor Dostoevsky, to the comics of Suihō Tagawa. In 1942, he was sent to boarding school in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture. While in Kamakura, his family's house in Tokyo was destroyed during the American air raids.
In the immediate postwar era, he went to high school in Fujisawa, Kanagawa prefecture, where he developed a friendship with future Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, who was one year ahead of him. He later returned to Tokyo, and eventually graduated from Keio University with a degree in English literature. Etō moved from Kamakura to the Ichigaya neighborhood in central Tokyo in 1948, returning to live in Kamakura from 1980 to his death.
Although hired as a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Etō devoted most of his time and efforts into literature, and published his first work, Natsume Sōseki ron (1955), a critique of the famous Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki, which won the Noma Literary Prize and the Kikuchi Kan Prize. He followed this with Dorei no shisō wo haisu (1958) and Sakka ha kōdō suru (1959), in which he argued that a writer's style was directly related to his personal behavior and background. [1]
In 1958, Etō joined a group of young, left-wing writers, artists and composers to form the "Young Japan Society" (Wakai Nihon no Kai) for the purpose of protesting a draconian Police Duties Bill introduced by conservative prime minister Nobusuke Kishi that would have authorized police use of warrantless searches and seizures against left-wing activists. [2] Etō and the Young Japan Society later participated in the massive Anpo protests against Kishi's effort to revise the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty from 1959 to 1960. [3]
In 1962, he published Kobayashi Hideo ronshū, in which he dared to write a critique on the famous literary critic Kobayashi Hideo. This work was awarded the Shichosha Literary Prize. Shortly afterwards, he departed for the United States for two years, for advanced studies at Princeton University at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Other works include Ichizoku saikai (1967–1972) in which he attempted to trace his family roots and at the same time, the roots of the Japanese people.
Etō was a very prolific author, and his books and essays ranged from literary criticism and to postwar political commentary; through taking controversial viewpoints, he also established himself as one of foremost public intellectuals in the print and television. He was initially a prominent member of the movement against the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, establishing the "Young Japan Society" with like-minded writers and intellectuals, although he later reversed his position after a revised version of the treaty was ratified, accusing his former colleagues of "intellectual bankruptcy" and of confusing politics with morality. [4]
Etō especially drew controversy during the mid-1960s when he produced a series of essays after his return from Princeton, which indicated a shift to the far right end of the political spectrum. He was highly critical of the policies of the American occupation, which he felt had destroyed or subverted Japanese traditions. [5] He was especially critical of the post-war Constitution of Japan, which he asserted was a foreign import imposed upon Japan which needed revision, if not replacement. [6]
In 1970, Etō completed Umi ga Yomigaeru, a work on the Russo-Japanese War, which (in August 1977) was made into the first three-hour historical drama to be aired on Japanese television. [7]
In 1975, he submitted a doctoral dissertation entitled Sōseki to Āsā-Ō densetsu ("Sōseki and the Arthurian Legend") to Keiō University, and received his doctoral degree. The dissertation was a literary criticism of Kairo-kō: A Dirge and he argued that Soseki's own love affair was reflected in the plot.
He was awarded the Japan Art Academy Award in the same year and in 1991, became a member of the Japan Art Academy. From 1994, he was an honorary chairman of the Japan Writer's Association and was on the judging committees for many of Japan's literary awards.
On 21 July 1999, Etō committed suicide at his home in Kamakura by cutting his left wrist. He had been depressed by the death of his wife due to cancer the previous year, and by a stroke which he had suffered, which made writing difficult. His funeral was held per Shinto rites, and his grave is at the Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.
Natsume Sōseki, pen name Sōseki, born Natsume Kin'nosuke, was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat, Kusamakura and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and writer of haiku, kanshi poetry and fairy tales.
Kokoro is a 1914 Japanese novel by Natsume Sōseki, and the final part of a trilogy starting with To the Spring Equinox and Beyond and followed by The Wayfarer. Set in the Meiji era, the novel tells of the acquaintance between a young man and an older man called "Sensei", who holds a secret from his past regarding the death of a friend.
John Weil Nathan is an American translator, writer, scholar, filmmaker, and Japanologist. His translations from Japanese into English include the works of Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburō Ōe, Kōbō Abe, and Natsume Sōseki. Nathan is also an Emmy Award-winning producer, writer and director of several films about Japanese culture and society and American business. He is Professor Emeritus of Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Masao Kume was a Japanese popular playwright, novelist and haiku poet active during the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. His wife and the wife of Nagai Tatsuo were sisters, making them brothers-in-law.
Takaaki Yoshimoto, also known as Ryūmei Yoshimoto, was a Japanese poet, philosopher, and literary critic. As a philosopher, he is remembered as a founding figure in the emergence of the New Left in Japan, and as a critic, he was at the forefront of a movement to force writers to confront their responsibility as wartime collaborators.
Shunsuke Tsurumi was a Japanese philosopher, historian, and sociologist.
Edwin McClellan was a British Japanologist, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture.
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Masajirō Kojima was a Japanese novelist active in Shōwa period Japan.
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Chūō Kōron is a monthly Japanese literary magazine, first established during the Meiji period and continuing to this day. It is published by its namesake-bearing Chūōkōron Shinsha. The headquarters is in Tokyo.
Kairo-kō: A Dirge is a 1905 novel by the Japanese author Natsume Sōseki. The earliest, and only major, prose treatment of the Arthurian legend in Japanese, it chronicles the adulterous love triangle between Lancelot, Guinevere, and Elaine of Astolat.
Grass on the Wayside is a 1915 Japanese autobiographical novel by Sōseki Natsume. It is his only autobiographical work of fiction, and his last completed work. Together with Kokoro (1914), Grass on the Wayside is often cited as Natsume's major literary effort.
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Ichirō Kōno was a Japanese politician during the postwar period who served as Deputy Prime Minister and a member of the National Diet. As Deputy Prime Minister, he was in charge of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was the head of the powerful "Kōno Faction" within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Kōno aspired to become prime minister, but although he held a large number of important party and cabinet positions, reflecting his power and influence, he was not able to rise to the premiership before his death in 1965.
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On 12 October 1960, Inejirō Asanuma, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, was assassinated at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo. During a televised debate, 17-year-old right-wing ultranationalist Otoya Yamaguchi charged onto the stage and fatally stabbed Asanuma with a wakizashi, a type of traditional short sword. Yamaguchi committed suicide while in custody.
The Miike Struggle was a year-long struggle in Japan in 1960 between the organized labor movement, backed by a variety of left wing groups, and big business organizations, backed by the Japanese right, centering around a lengthy labor dispute at the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine on the west coast of Kyushu in southern Japan. Occurring at the climax of a long series of escalating strikes and other militant labor actions in 1950s Japan, the Miike Struggle was the largest labor-management dispute in Japanese history. Ultimately, the labor movement in Japan was defeated at Miike, dealing a significant blow to its prospects going forward.
In Japanese literature, the Bundan is a term used to refer to a "system" of literary cliques and coteries that allow small in-groups of established authors, critics, and publishers to selectively advance the careers of favored protégés by controlling access to publication in prestigious literary magazines and dominating the selection committees for prestigious literary prizes such as the Akutagawa Prize. The Bundan has also been described as an "unofficial literary guild."
Ken Hirano was the pen name of a prominent Japanese literary critic and longtime professor of literature at Meiji University. His real name was Akira Hirano.
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