坂の上の雲 二

坂の上の雲 #2

by Ryōtarō Shiba, 司馬 遼太郎

戦争が勃発した……。世界を吹き荒れる帝国主義の嵐は、維新からわずか二十数年の小国を根底からゆさぶり、日本は朝鮮をめぐって大国・清と交戦状態に突入する。陸軍少佐・秋山好古は騎兵を率い、海軍少尉・真之も洋上に出撃した。一方、正岡子規は胸を病みながらも近代短歌・俳句を確立しようと、旧弊な勢力との対決を決意する。

Genres: Japanese Literature

375 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 10, 1999

About the author

Ryōtarō Shiba (司馬 遼太郎) born Teiichi Fukuda (福田 定一 Fukuda Teiichi, August 7, 1923 – February 12, 1996) in Osaka, Japan, was a Japanese author best known for his novels about historical events in Japan and on the Northeast Asian sub-continent, as well as his historical and cultural essays pertaining to Japan and its relationship to the rest of the world.

Shiba studied Mongolian at the Osaka School of Foreign Languages (now the School of Foreign Studies at Osaka University) and began his career as a journalist with the Sankei Shimbun, one of Japan's major newspapers. After World War II Shiba began writing historical novels. The magazine Shukan Asahi printed Shiba's articles about his travels within Japan in a series that ran for 1,146 installments. Shiba received the Naoki Prize for the 1959 novel Fukuro no Shiro ("The Castle of an Owl"). In 1993 Shiba received the Government's Order of Cultural Merit. Shiba was a prolific author who frequently wrote about the dramatic change Japan went through during the late Edo and early Meiji periods. His most monumental works include Kunitori Monogatari (国盗り物語), Ryoma ga Yuku (竜馬がゆく; see below), Moeyo Ken, and Saka no ue no kumo (坂の上の雲), all of which have spawned dramatizations, most notably Taiga dramas aired in hour-long segments over a full year on NHK television. He also wrote numerous essays that were published in collections, one of which—Kaidō wo Yuku—is a multi-volume journal-like work covering his travels across Japan and around the world. Shiba is widely appreciated for the originality of his analyses of historical events, and many people in Japan have read at least one of his works.

Several of Shiba's works have been translated into English, including his fictionalized biographies of Kukai (Kukai the Universal: Scenes from His Life, 2003) and Tokugawa Yoshinobu (The Last Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 2004), as well as The Tatar Whirlwind: A Novel of Seventeenth-Century East Asia (2007).

(from Wikipedia)

Alternative Names:

Fukuda, Teiichi
Ryotaro, Shiba
Shiba, Ryoutarou
Ryoutarou, Shiba
Sima, Liaotailang
司馬遼太郎
司马辽太郎
Shiba, Rëotaro
Шиба, Рёотаро
司马辽太郎
司馬, 遼太郎
司馬遼太郎
司場遼太郎

Reviews

[Kayo Kojima · Rating 3 out of 5]

個人的な知識量と理解力の問題ではあるものの、日清戦争の話から始まる本作、最後の章も含めて戦争の内容に関する文章が長くやや冗長な印象を受けた。それでもなぜ日本が日清戦争に勝てたのか、その後のどのような出来事が日露戦争の勝利につながったのかの理解につながる重要な書であることに変わりない。