更新日：2010年7月5日

Ooka Shohei

Ooka Shohei, novelist and critic, was born in Tokyo in 1909. He became familiar with literature from early childhood and learned French as a student of the old Seijo High School. Having the literary critic Kobayashi Hideo as his tutor, he became acquainted with the tanka poet Nakahara Chuya, the critic Kawakami Tetsutaro, and other literary figures.

After graduating from the School of Literature at Kyoto University, Ooka got a job with the political tabloid, Kokumin Shimbun, but quit after one year to devote himself to the study of the French writer, Stendhal. In 1938 he was employed as a translator by a Franco-Japanese company in Kobe, and in his spare time, he began to translate the works of Stendhal. In 1944, he was drafted into the Imperial Army and sent to the front line at Mindoro Island in the Philippines. But in January the following year, he was captured by the American forces and sent to a prisoner of war camp on Leyte Island. He returned to Japan at the end of the year.

On the recommendation of Kobayashi Hideo, he published "Furyoki," a calm and moderate account of his experiences as a prisoner of war. This won him the Yokomitsu Riichi Prize. From then on, he became a prolific writer and published such novels as "Musashino Fujin," "Nobi" (tr "Fires on the Plain") and "Hanakage." He also devoted himself to writing critical biographies of Nakahara Chuya and Tominaga Taro. In 1961, he showed the diversity of his skills by presenting his commonsense theory of literature. From 1967 to 69, he sifted through an enormous amount of data to write an account of the battle of Leyte. Ooka died in 1988 at the age of 79, just as the Showa period was also drawing to a close.

Ooka first lived in Kamakura in 1936 at a boarding house in Ogigayatsu and then again in 1948, this time at Kobayashi Hideo’s house in Yukinoshita. The following year, he spent time at Gokurakuji.