Junji Kinoshita
| Kinoshita Junji | |
|---|---|
| Born | 木下 順二 August 2, 1914 Tokyo, Japan |
| Died | October 30, 2006 (aged 92) |
| Occupation | Playwright, Translator, Literary Critic |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Education | MA, University of Tokyo (1939) |
| Literary movement | Shingeki |
| Notable works |
Twilight Crane Between God and Man |
| Notable awards | Kishida Prize for Drama (1947) Mainichi Press Drama Award (1949) Sankei Award for Children's Books and Publications (1959) Mainichi Press Book Award (1959, 1965) Yomiuri Literature Prize (1978, 1984) Asahi Press Award (1986) |
Junji Kinoshita (木下 順二 Kinoshita Junji?, 2 August 1914 – 30 October 2006) was the foremost playwright of modern drama in postwar Japan. He was also a translator and scholar of Shakespeare's plays. Kinoshita’s achievements were not limited to Japan. He helped to promote theatrical exchanges between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, and he traveled broadly in Europe and Asia. In addition to his international work, Kinoshita joined various societies that focused on the study of folktales and the Japanese language.
Kinoshita was born in Tokyo as the son of government official Kinoshita Yahachiro and his wife, Sassa Mie. Kinoshita attended school in Tokyo until 1925 when his parents moved back to his father's hometown of Kumamoto to retire. Kinoshita was in fourth grade at the time. Although Kinoshita was teased very much by other students because of his Tokyo dialect at his new school, this experience in his childhood made him think deeply about the Japanese language and become more aware of the complexities of spoken language. He attended Kumamoto Prefectural Middle School and later went on to Kumamoto Fifth High School, where he received a degree equivalent to that of a western university.
In 1936, Kinoshita returned to Tokyo to attend the Imperial University of Tokyo where he studied English literature. He majored in Shakespeare under the instruction of Yoshio Nakano (中野好夫), who was an eminent translator of English and American literature. He earned a degree in Elizabethan theater in the early 1940s, but majoring in English literature was not encouraged in Japan at the time since the society was greatly influenced by militarism. His early plays, on the theme of some folktales, were created at that time. He graduated with a master's degree from University of Tokyo in 1939 and continued in school. He studied the history of the Elizabethan Theater.
Kinoshita left many works, which cover a wide range of genres including plays, novels, and theatre reviews, in addition to his translation of Shakespeare’s works. They are collected in The Collected Works of Junji Kinoshita (木下順二集), published by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers (株式会社岩波書店, Kabushiki Gaisha Iwanami Shoten). Kinoshita was selected as a member of The Japan Art Academy (日本芸術院) in 1984, and chosen as the honorary citizen of Tokyo (東京名誉都民) in 1998, but he turned down both of these honors. He never accepted any national honors or awards, and stuck to his left-wing political views throughout his life. Kinoshita died on October 30, 2006, from pneumonia. In accordance with his will, no funeral was held. His death was reported one month after his death.
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