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Kafū Nagai

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Kafū Nagai
Kafū Nagai in 1947
Kafū Nagai in 1947
BornSōkichi Nagai
(1879-12-03)3 December 1879
Tokyo, Japan
Died30 April 1959(1959-04-30) (aged 79)
Ichikawa, Japan
OccupationWriter, translator, editor
EducationJunior High School
Literary movementNaturalism, Aestheticism

Kafū Nagai (永井 荷風, Nagai Kafū, Japanese pronunciation: [kaꜜ.ɸɯː],[1][2] 3 December 1879 – 30 April 1959) was a Japanese writer, editor and translator.[3] His works like Geisha in Rivalry and A Strange Tale from East of the River are noted for their depictions of life of the demimonde in early 20th-century Tokyo.[4]

Biography

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Nagai Kyūichirō, Kafū's father

Nagai was born Sōkichi Nagai (永井 壮吉) in Koishikawa, Bunkyō, Tokyo, as the eldest son of government official Kyūichirō Nagai[3][5] and his wife Tsune, the daughter of scholar Washizu Kidō.[6] His father was an elite government official in the Home Ministry, who had studied as an exchange student in the United States[3] and also wrote and published Chinese poetry.[7] Kyūichirō later left his Ministry occupation to work for the Nippon Yusen shipping company.[4] When the second son was born in 1883, Nagai was sent to live with his maternal grandmother until 1886.[7] During his childhood, he visited a Chinese language school, and, under his mother's influence, was taught singing and playing music instruments, showing a fondness for utazawa, a late Edo era style of singing accompanied by the shamisen.[7] Starting in 1890, he was also taught English language.[7]

Due to illness, Nagai spent several months in 1895 in a hospital in Odawara.[8] From 1897 on, he started his regular visits to the Yoshiwara red-light district, accompanied by his friend and writer Seiichi Inoue (1878–1923).[7] The same year, he graduated from Junior High School.[3] With his mother and younger brothers, he visited Shanghai, where his father was working for Nippon Yusen.[8] He returned to Japan in Autumn and enrolled in the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages.[3][5]

Kafū Nagai in 1912

In 1898, he published his first short story Sudare no tsuki.[7] He became a disciple of novelist Hirotsu Ryūrō and writer Fukuchi Ōchi, studied rakugo and kabuki play writing, appeared on stage in yose plays, and dropped out of University.[3][7] His writings were influenced by French Naturalism and Émile Zola, whose work he also translated.[7] Between 1903 and 1908, through his father's influence, Nagai visited the United States and later France, a time which he wrote down in his American Stories [jp] (Amerika monogatari) and Furansu monogatari (lit. "French Stories").[7] The 1908 publication of American Stories met with much critical acclaim.[3]

In 1910, Nagai started teaching as a professor of literature at Keio University and became the editor of the literary magazine Mita Bungaku.[3] At this time, he had already turned away from Naturalism and taken a shift towards Aestheticism.[3][5][7] The transition from the Meiji era to the Taishō era was also a turning point in Nagai's life: the death of his father, the divorce from both his first and second wife[3] (the second marriage—to a geisha—led to the alienation of his mother),[4] and the resigning from his position at Keio University and Mita Bungaku.[3] A frequenter of Tokyo's demimonde, Nagai wrote many stories about its inhabitants, geisha, courtesans and their customers, most notably Geisha in Rivalry (1916–17).[4]

After a decade-long hiatus, he published the novellas During the Rains (1931), Flowers in the Shade (1934) and A Strange Tale from East of the River (1937), with the latter having repeatedly been cited as his major work.[4][9] His contempt for the militarist regime, which in turn regarded his work as subversive for the war effort, led to a halt of the publishing of his writings until the end of World War II.[3][4] The publication of his diaries (1917–1959) ranks as the major literary event of his post-war career.[4]

In 1952, Nagai received the Order of Culture, and in 1954, he was elected a member of the Japan Art Academy.[3] He died on 30 April 1959.[3][4]

Selected works

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  • 1908: American Stories (あめりか物語, Amerika monogatari)
  • 1911: The River Sumida (すみだ川, Sumidagawa)
  • 1916–1917: Geisha in Rivalry (腕くらべ, Ude kurabe)
  • 1917–1959: Danchōtei nichijō (断腸亭日乗)
  • 1931: During the Rains (つゆのあとさき, Tsuyu no atosaki)
  • 1934: Flowers in the Shade (ひかげの花, Hikage no hana)
  • 1937: A Strange Tale from East of the River (濹東綺譚, Bokutō kidan)

References

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  1. ^ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, ed. (24 May 2016). NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典 (in Japanese). NHK Publishing.
  2. ^ Kindaichi, Haruhiko; Akinaga, Kazue, eds. (10 March 2025). 新明解日本語アクセント辞典 (in Japanese) (2nd ed.). Sanseidō.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "永井荷風 (Nagai Kafū)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 24 September 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Dunlop, Lane (1994). "Translator's Preface"". During the Rains & Flowers in the Shade: Two Novellas by Nagai Kafu. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
  5. ^ a b c Henshall, Kenneth G. (2014). Historical Dictionary of Japan to 1945. Scarecrow Press. pp. 279–280. ISBN 9780810878716.
  6. ^ Nagai, Kafū (2000). Shitaya sōwa. 荷風 永井. Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店. pp. 12–13. ISBN 4-00-310428-5. OCLC 675288661.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Schulz, Evelyn (1997). Nagai Kafû: "Tagebuch eines Heimgekehrten". Hamburg: LIT.
  8. ^ a b Seidensticker, Edward (1965). Kafū the Scribbler. The Life and Writings of Nagai Kafū, 1879-1959. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
  9. ^ "濹東綺譚 (Bokutō kidan)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 27 September 2022.
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