Tōson Shimazaki
| Tōson Shimazaki | |
|---|---|
Tōson Shimazaki
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| Born |
25 March 1872 Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan |
| Died | 22 August 1943 (aged 71) Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Genre | novels |
| Literary movement | naturalism |
Tōson Shimazaki (島崎 藤村 Shimazaki Tōson?, 25 March 1872 – 22 August 1943) is the pen-name of Shimazaki Haruki, a Japanese author, active in the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. He began his career as a romantic poet, but went on to establish himself as a major proponent of naturalism in Japanese fiction.
Tōson was born in what is now part of the city of Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture and spent his childhood in the old post town of Magome-juku in the countryside of the Kiso District, which he left in 1881. He subsequently wrote about many aspects of life in this area, including in his most famous novel Before the Dawn, which was modeled on the life of his father, Shimazaki Masaki, who went insane and died by the time Tōson was fourteen, leading to Tōson being raised by friends of his family. Later, his oldest sister would also die from mental disorders. Tōson later described his nature as "melancholy inherited from my parents."
Tōson graduated from Meiji Gakuin University in 1891, and the following year he began teaching English at Meiji Women's School. Around this time, he became interested in literature through his friendship with essayist and translator Kochō Baba (馬場孤蝶 Baba Kochō) and Shūkotsu Togawa (戸川秋骨 Togawa Shūkotsu). Tōson joined a literary group associated with the literary magazine Bungakukai (文學界) and he also began to contribute translations to Jogaku Zasshi (女学雑誌 Magazine of Women's Learning). The suicide in 1894 of his close friend, the Romantic writer Kitamura Tokoku, came as a great shock and would have a major impact on Tōson's own writings.
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