Shūsei Tokuda

Tokuda was born in Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture.[1] Coming from a family of the former feudal nobility, Tokuda began his literary life as a follower of the writer Ozaki Kōyō, who was four years his senior and had already established himself as a literary man in the late 1880s. Their relationship wasn't to last long, though, with Kōyō dying in 1903, after which Tokuda began to move from Kōyō's style of romanticism into a mixture of naturalism and the confessional known as "Shizen-shugi", an example of which is his 1908 novel Arajotai (新世帯), which dealt with the frustrations of a young working-class couple.

After the publication of Ashiato (足迹) in 1910, Tokuda would release his most autobiographical work, Kabi (黴), in 1911, a classic example of the Japanese genre known as the "I-novel". He followed with the novel Rough Living (Arakure, あらくれ) in 1915.

After the death of his wife in 1926, Tokuda began a series of relationships with younger women, which would inspire his later works, especially his best-known, Kasō jinbutsu (仮装人物), released from 1935 to 1938, as well as the unfinished Shukuzu (縮図) from 1941.

A number of Tokuda's works were adapted into films in Japan.[2] A monument honoring Tokuda was erected near the summit of Mount Utatsu in 1947. The monument features writing authored by poet Murō Saisei and was designed by architect Yoshirō Taniguchi.

• 1910: Ashiato
• 1911: Kabi
• 1915: Rough Living (Arakure)
• 1933: The Town's Dance Hall (Machi no odoriba)
• 1935: Order of the White Paulownia (Kunshō)
• 1935–1938: Kasō jinbutsu
• 1941: Shukuzu (unfinished)

• Tokuda, Shusei (2001). Rough Living. Translated by Torrance, Richard. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0824823877.
• Rimer, J. Thomas, ed. (2005). "The Town's Dance Hall". The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: Volume 1: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945. Columbia University Press.
• Morris, Ivan, ed. (1962). "Order of the White Paulownia". Modern Japanese Stories: An Anthology. ISBN 0804833362.
• Torrance, Richard (1994). The Fiction of Tokuda Shusei, and the Emergence of Japan's New Middle Class. Washington University Press.

• 1953: Epitome (Shukuzu), director Kaneto Shindō
• 1957: Untamed (Arakure), director Mikio Naruse
• 1962: Stolen Pleasure (Tadare), director Yasuzō Masumura

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shūsei Tokuda.

• Works by or about Shūsei Tokuda at Internet Archive
• Works by Shūsei Tokuda at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Shūsei Tokuda at Find a Grave
• Shūsei Tokuda at IMDb