Junzaburō Nishiwaki
| Nishiwaki Junzaburō | |
|---|---|
Nishiwaki Junzaburō
|
|
| Native name | 西脇 順三郎 |
| Born |
20 January 1894 Ojiya, Niigata Japan |
| Died | 5 June 1982 (aged 88) Ojiya, Niigata, Japan |
| Resting place | Zōjō-ji, Shiba, Tokyo Japan |
| Occupation | Writer, Translator, Literary Critic |
| Alma mater |
Keio University New College, Oxford |
| Genre | poetry |
| Literary movement | modernism, surrealism |
| Notable awards | Yomiuri Prize (1957) |
Junzaburō Nishiwaki (西脇 順三郎 Nishiwaki Junzaburō, 20 January 1894 – 5 June 1982) was a contemporary Japanese poet and literary critic, active in Shōwa period Japan, specializing in modernism, Dadaism and surrealism. He was also a noted painter of watercolors.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Nishiwaki was born in what is now part of the city of Ojiya in Niigata Prefecture, where his father was a banker. He came to Tokyo intending to become a painter and studied under the famous Fujishima Takeji and Kuroda Seiki but had to give up an artistic career due to his father’s sudden death. Instead, he enrolled in Keio University's Department of Economics, and also studied Latin, English, Greek, and German. Even as a student he demonstrated extraordinary language abilities, writing his thesis entirely in Latin. As a student, he was drawn to the works of Arthur Symons and Walter Pater, as well as the art works of French symbolism
Nishiwaki became interested in poetry while a student at Keio University, and contributed verses to the boy's magazine Shonen Sekai. He also began to write poetry in English. Nishiwaki expressed distaste for the romanticism and subjective modes which dominated modern Japanese poetry.
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