更新日：2010年7月5日

Nagai Tatsuo

Nagai Tatsuo, novelist, was born in 1904 in Tokyo. After graduating from a higher elementary school he had to give up all hope of further education due to his father's illness. At the age of 16, his first novel "Kappan-ya no Hanashi" (Tale of a Printer’s Shop) won a prize in a competition and gained high praise from the well-known author, playwright, and editor, Kikuchi Kan. With this success Nagai published the story, "Kuroi Gohan" (Black Rice) in Bungei Shunju, a monthly literary journal founded by Kikuchi Kan. In 1924, together with the critic Kobayashi Hideo, he launched Yamamayu, also a monthly literary magazine, through which he deepened his literary talent.

In 1927, while continuing his creative activities, Nagai obtained an editorial position with the publisher of Bungei Shunju. During this time, he successfully launched a number of other magazines. He subsequently helped to lay the foundations for the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes, created in 1935, and later became a member of the screening committee. It was because of these valuable contributions that Nagai came to be referred to as the "guardian" of the two literary prizes.

Because of his wartime activity as a correspondent, Nagai was purged from public service after World War II, and he decided to concentrate on writing as a profession. He wrote a number of short novels, among them, "Mikan," "Ikko" (One), and "Aki" (Autumn), which earned him the sobriquet, "maestro of short stories." Nagai also wrote "Karenda no Yohaku" (Blanks on a Calendar), "Waga Kirinukicho yori (From My Scrapbook), and "Yugokoro" (Evening Heart), works he modestly referred to as "literary miscellany."

Nagai is also known as a haiku poet under the name of Tomonkyo and demonstrated his wide literary talent as a selector of the haiku submitted to various magazines. He died in 1990 at the age of 86.

Nagai lived in Kamakura from 1934. After several moves he settled in Yukinoshita, by the Namerigawa River, in 1953. Nagai served as the first director of the Kamakura Bungakukan (Museum of Literature) from 1985 to 1990.