Naoya Shiga

Naoya Shiga
Shiga Naoya in 1938 at Suwa, Nagano
Native name	志賀 直哉
Born	(1883-02-20)20 February 1883 Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Japan
Died	21 October 1971(1971-10-21) (aged 88) Atami, Shizuoka, Japan
Resting place	Aoyama Cemetery, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Novelist, Short Story Writer
Language	Japanese
Genre	Contemporary
Literary movement	I Novel

Naoya Shiga (志賀 直哉, Shiga Naoya^?, 20 February 1883 – 21 October 1971) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer active during the Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan.

Shiga was born in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture. His father, the son of a samurai in the service of Sōma Domain, was a successful banker. The family moved to Tokyo when Shiga was three, to live with his grandparents, who were largely responsible for raising him. Shiga's mother died when he was thirteen and his father remarried not long after. Shiga's relationship with his father became increasingly strained after the former was converted to Christianity by Uchimura Kanzō, began advocating social causes and attempted to participate in protests in 1901 over the Ashio Copper Mine, which polluted an adjacent river and poisoned local inhabitants. Shiga's father, whose bank was part owner of the mine, managed to forbid his participation in the protest, but another crisis arose when Shiga declared his intention to marry one of the family's maids, with whom he was having an affair. The maid was removed from the household, and Shiga was severely criticized for what his father felt was an irresponsible and aimless lifestyle.

Shiga graduated from the Gakushuin Peer's Elementary School and attended Tokyo Imperial University from 1906. However, he was a mediocre student and left university in 1910 without graduating.

While Shiga was at the Gakushuin he became friends with Saneatsu Mushanokōji and Kinoshita Rigen. His literary career began with a handwritten literary magazine Boya ("Perspective"), which was circulated within their literary group at the school. In 1910 Shiga contributed the story Abashiri made ("To Abashiri") to the first issue of the literary magazine Shirakaba, which he helped to create.