菊池寛

by Kan Kikuchi, 菊池 寛

475 pages

First published December 1, 1991

About the author

Hiroshi Kikuchi (菊池 寛 Kikuchi Hiroshi?, December 26, 1888 – March 6, 1948), known by his pen name Kan Kikuchi (which uses the same kanji as his real name), was a Japanese author born in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. He established the publishing company Bungeishunjū, the monthly magazine of the same name, the Japan Writer's Association and both the Akutagawa and Naoki Prize for popular literature. During the Meiji period, Kikuchi Kan's main focus was to accurately portray the hardships of the daily lives of the common people. He was one of the leading playwrights during the Meiji period. In 1920, Kikuchi Kan's success was more recognized by the general public after the success of one of his pieces of work, Shinju fujin (真珠夫人 Madame Pearl). He was also the head of Daiei Motion Picture Company (currently Kadokawa Pictures). He is known to have been an avid player of Mahjong.

Reviews

[meeners · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty entertaining reading, and useful when thinking about issues of canon formation (esp. concerning "edo" literature - the legacy of which still lives on today) and the artificial divide between 通俗小説 and 純粋小説. one can start to see why kikuchi kan was so popular back in the day and yet so easily forgotten (or made to be forgotten) later.

note on the edition: i have a passionate book lust for the ちくま日本文学全集 series, the volumes of which are all highly readable and accessible and carefully edited/footnoted and affordable and beautifully, beautifully bound. i cannot even describe the satisfaction that comes simply from holding one in my hands. but it should be noted that these books are not really suited for academic use (too much cleaning up for contemporary readers).