Eiji Yoshikawa 吉川 英治 | |
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| Born | Hidetsugu Yoshikawa 吉川英次 (1892-08-11)August 11, 1892 Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan |
| Died | September 7, 1962(1962-09-07) (aged 70) Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Citizenship | Japanese |
| Genre | Historical drama |
| Subject | Japan History |
| Notable works | Miyamoto Musashi |
| Spouse | |
 Literature portal | |
Eiji Yoshikawa (吉川 英治,Yoshikawa Eiji, August 11, 1892 – September 7, 1962) was a Japanese historical novelist. Among his best-known novels are revisions of older classics. He was mainly influenced by classics such asThe Tale of the Heike,Tale of Genji,Water Margin andRomance of the Three Kingdoms, many of which he retold in his own style. As an example, Yoshikawa took upTaiko's original manuscript in 15 volumes to retell it in a more accessible tone and reduce it to only two volumes. His other books also serve similar purposes and, although most of his novels are not original works, he created a huge amount of work and a renewed interest in the past. He was awarded theCultural Order of Merit in 1960 (the highest award for a man of letters in Japan), theOrder of the Sacred Treasure and theMainichi Art Award just before his death from cancer in 1962. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan.
He was bornHidetsugu Yoshikawa (吉川英次,Yoshikawa Hidetsugu) inKanagawa Prefecture, in what is now a part ofYokohama. Because of his father's failed business, he had to drop out of primary school to work.[1] When he was 18, after a near-fatal accident working at the Yokohama docks, he moved to Tokyo and became an apprentice in a goldlacquer workshop. Around this time, he became interested in comichaiku. He joined a poetry society and started writing comic haiku under the pseudonym "Kijiro".
In 1914, withThe Tale ofEnoshima, he won first prize in a novel-writing contest sponsored by the publisherKodansha. He joined the newspaperMaiyu Shimbun in 1921, and in the following year he began publishing serializations, starting withLife ofShinran.
He married Yasu Akazawa in 1923, the year of theGreat Kantō earthquake. His experiences in the earthquake strengthened his resolve to make writing his career. In the following years he published stories in various periodicals published by Kodansha, who recognized him as their number one author.[citation needed] He used 19 pen names before settling on Eiji Yoshikawa.[citation needed] He first used this pen name with the serialization ofSword Trouble, Woman Trouble. His name became a household word afterSecret Record of Naruto was serialized in theOsakaMainichi Shimbun; from then on his writing became much more popular.
In the early 1930s, his writing became introspective, reflecting growing troubles in his personal life. But in 1935, with the serialization ofMusashi, about famed swordsmanMiyamoto Musashi, in theAsahi Shimbun, his writing settled firmly into the genre of historical adventure fiction.
Upon the outbreak of war with China in 1937 theAsahi Shimbun sent him into the field as a special correspondent. At this time he divorced Yasu Akazawa and married Fumiko Ikedo. In 1938, Yoshikawa joined thePen butai (lit. "Pen corps"), a government organisation which consisted of authors who travelled the front during theSecond Sino-Japanese War to write favourably of Japan's war efforts in China.[2][3] During the war he continued writing novels, and became more influenced by Chinese culture. Among the works of this period areTaiko and his re-telling of theRomance of the Three Kingdoms.
At the end of the war he stopped writing for a while and settled down to enjoy a quiet retirement in Yoshino (present-dayOumeshi) on the outskirts of Tokyo, but by 1947 he had started writing again. His post-war works includeNewTale of the Heike, published in theAsahi Weekly (1950), andA Private Record of thePacific War (1958).
On September 7, 1962, he died from cancer-related complications.
Four of his books have been translated into English. They are:
Translated byCharles S. Terry
Translated byWilliam Scott Wilson
Translated by Fuki Wooyenaka Uramatsu
Translated byEdwin McClellan
The Japanese publisher Kodansha currently publishes an 80-volume series:Yoshikawa Eiji Rekishi Jidai Bunko (吉川英治歴史時代文庫), orEiji Yoshikawa's Historical Fiction in Paperback. Kodansha numbers the series from 1 to 80.
