Sakunosuke Oda

Sakunosuke Oda (織田 作之助, Oda Sakunosuke^?, born October 26, 1913 – January 10, 1947) was a Japanese writer. He is often grouped together with Osamu Dazai and Ango Sakaguchi as the Buraiha. Literally meaning ruffian or hoodlum faction, this label was not a matter of a stylistic school but one bestowed upon them by conservative critics disparaging the authors' attitudes and subject matter.

Oda’s writing career spans both prewar and postwar Japan. A native of Osaka, he wrote mostly of life in that city and the customs and manners of the common people there. In 1939, his story Zokushu (俗臭, Vulgarity) was a candidate for the Akutagawa Prize. The following year, Oda published Meoto Zenzai (夫婦善哉). Named after an Osaka sweet shop, it follows the life of a couple whose relationship survives despite the persistent wastefulness, debauchery, and unkept promises of the erring man.

Oda's characters usually did not fit into what were traditionally considered appropriate forms, either in their frank humanness or in their stubborn individuality, as in Roppakukinsei (六白金星, Six White Venus, 1946), or out of the cruel necessity of survival. In the story Sesō (世相, The State of the Times, 1946), Oda describes the first months of the occupation period following Japan's surrender at the end of World War II, which were marked by food shortages so severe that government rations were not enough even to sustain life and people turned to the black market to procure the food they needed for their own survival. During Oda's lifetime, several of his works were banned.

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