Jun Takami
| Jun Takami | |
|---|---|
Takami Jun
|
|
| Native name | 高見 順 |
| Born |
30 January 1907 Sakai city, Fukui Prefecture, Japan |
| Died | 17 August 1965 (aged 58) Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan |
| Resting place | Tōkei-ji, Kamakura, Japan |
| Occupation | writer |
| Alma mater | Tokyo Imperial University |
| Genre | novels and poetry |
| Literary movement | Shirakaba |
| Notable awards | Mainichi Culture Award (1959) Shinchosha Culture Award (1963) Noma Literary Prize (1964) |
Jun Takami (高見 順? Takami Jun, 30 January 1907 – 17 August 1965) was the pen-name of a Japanese novelist and poet active in Shōwa period Japan. His real name was Takami Yoshio.
Takami was born in Mikuni, Fukui (part of the present-day city of Sakai), as the illegitimate son of the prefecture's governor and a young woman who had been assigned to entertain him on a visit to her town. The famous writer Nagai Kafu was his half-brother.
Takami was interested in literature from youth, and was particularly attracted to the humanism expressed by the Shirakaba writers. On entering Tokyo Imperial University he joined a leftist student arts group, and contributed to their literary journal (Sayoku Geijutsu). After graduation, he went to work for Columbia Records, and continued his activities as a Marxist writer, as part of the proletarian literature movement.
In 1932, he was arrested with other communists and suspected members of the Japan Communist Party under the Peace Preservation Laws, and was released six months later after being coerced into recanting his leftist ideology. An auto-biographical account of his experience appeared in Kokyu Wasureubeki ("Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot", 1935), which, although considered wordy, was nominated for the first Akutagawa Prize. The theme of ironic self-pity over the weakness that led to his “conversion” and his subsequent intellectual confusion were recurring themes in his future works.
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