更新日：2010年7月5日

Nakamura Mitsuo

The critic, playwright and novelist Nakamura Mitsuo was born in Tokyo in 1911. His real name was Koba Ichiro. While still a student at Tokyo University, he was already submitting critical essays to the journal Bungakukai (The Literary World). His study of the novelist Futabatei Shimei received high recognition and was followed by other critiques of contemporary Japanese and Western writers, focusing on cultural comparisons. In 1938 he went to study in France on the invitation of the French Government, but was forced to return to Japan at the outbreak of the Second World War.

After the war, he published "Fuzoku Shosetsu Ron," which developed from an ongoing feud with Niwa Fumio, a popular writer of the time. In it, Nakamura analyzed modern Japanese realism and made a scathing attack against the I-novel and the "fuzoku" novel which dealt with modern urban life. Other critiques include "Kindai e no Giwaku" (Suspicions about Modernity), "Tanizaki Junichiro Ron," "Shiga Naoya Ron," and "The Legend of Futabatei Shimei." Among his plays are "Pari Hanjoki" (Prospering in Paris) and "Kiteki Issei" (Starting Whistle). He also wrote novels, including "Waga Sei no Hakusho" (Confessions of My Sexuality) "Nise no Guzo" (False Idols), and "Aru Ai" (A Certain Love).

Nakamura began living in Kamakura from the spring of 1933, renting a house near Kakuonji Temple with a friend. He moved to Inamuragasaki in 1941 and then to Ogigayatsu in 1957, where he lived until his death in 1988 at the age of 77.