Hakuchō Masamune

Masamune was born in Bizen, Okayama Prefecture, as the eldest (and sickly) son of an old and influential family of landowners.{{cite web|url=http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/330.html |title=Masamune, Hakucho |website=National Diet Library, Japan |access-date=11 November 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%AD%A3%E5%AE%97%E7%99%BD%E9%B3%A5-16706 |title=正宗白鳥 (Masamune Hakuchō) |website=Kotobank |access-date=11 November 2021 |language=ja}} In 1896 he joined the English department of the Tokyo Senmon Gakko (now Waseda University), and was baptized as a Christian by priest Uemura Masahisa the following year. After graduation, he worked in the university's Publishing Department, and began writing literary, art, and cultural criticism for the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in 1903.

In 1904 Masamune published his first novel, Sekibaku (Solitude), in the literary magazine Shinshosetsu. Already known for his distinctive criticism, he gained attention as a writer of fiction with Doko-e ("Whither?"), which was serialised in Waseda bungaku in 1908 and is regarded his representative work as a naturalistic writer. In 1910, he left the Yomiuri Shimbun to become an independent writer. His 1911 novel The Clay Doll (Doro ningyō) gained further acclaim. Masamune's early writings in particular have repeatedly been described as nihilistic and bearing a negative view on life and its delusions, and his criticisms called cynical. Martin Seymour-Smith stated that his earlier novels "are somewhat over-ebulliently nihilistic […] but his sense of loneliness – the real subject, it has rightly been said, of the modern Japanese novel – was always authentic".{{cite book|first=Martin |last=Seymour-Smith |title=MacMillan Guide to Modern World Literature |publisher=The MacMillan Press |edition=revised |year=1985 |location=London and Basingstoke |pages=810–811}}

Masamune wrote in a variety of genres; major works include the stories Ushibeya no nioi ("The Stench of the Stable") and Shisha seisha ("The Dead and the Living"), both 1916, the play Jinsei no kōfuku ("The Happiness of Human Life"), 1924, and the 1932 criticism collection Bundan jimbutsu hyōron ("Critical Essays on Literary Figures"), which was expanded into Sakka ron ("A Study of Writers") in 1941–42.{{cite web|url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%96%87%E5%A3%87%E4%BA%BA%E7%89%A9%E8%A9%95%E8%AB%96-128596#E3.83.96.E3.83.AA.E3.82.BF.E3.83.8B.E3.82.AB.E5.9B.BD.E9.9A.9B.E5.A4.A7.E7.99.BE.E7.A7.91.E4.BA.8B.E5.85.B8.20.E5.B0.8F.E9.A0.85.E7.9B.AE.E4.BA.8B.E5.85.B8 |title=文壇人物評論 (Bundan jimbutsu hyōron) |website=Kotobank |access-date=11 November 2021 |language=ja}}

Masamune received the Order of Culture in 1950, and the Yomiuri Prize for Literature in 1960 for Kotoshi no aki.{{cite book|first=Robert |last=Rolf |title=Masamune Hakuchō |publisher=Twayne Publishers |location=Boston |year=1979 |page=13}} His birthplace has been turned into a museum.{{cite web|url=http://www.opief.or.jp/welcome/eng/1281 |title=Tourism: The People and History of Bizen |website=Welcome to Okayama |access-date=11 November 2021}} Of Masamune's younger brothers, Atsuo is known as a poet and scholar, Genkei as a botanist, and Tokusaburo as a painter.{{cite web|url=https://www.hiroshima-museum.jp/en/collection/jp/masamune_t.html |title=Masamune Tokusaburo |website=Hiroshima Museum of Art |access-date=11 November 2021}}

File:Masamune Hakucho birthplace 02.JPG

• 1904: Sekibaku
• 1908: Doko-e
• 1911: The Clay Doll
• 1916: Ushibeya no nioi
• 1916: Shisha seisha
• 1924: Jinsei no kōfuku
• 1925: The Couple Next Door
• 1932: Bundan jimbutsu hyōron
• 1938: Shisō mushisō
• 1938: Bundanteki jijoden
• 1941–42: Sakka ron
• 1947: Tenshi hokaku
• 1948: Shizenshugi seisuishi
• 1949: Uchimura Kanzō
• 1949: Nippon dasshutsu
• 1959: Kotoshi no aki

• {{cite book|title=Tokyo People : Three Stories from the Japanese (Mikihiko Nagata: His Mother's Arms, Rintaro Mori: As if, Hakuchō Masamune: The Mud Doll) |chapter=The Mud Doll |last=Masamune |first=Hakuchō |translator1-last=Sinclair |translator1-first=Gregg M. |translator2-last=Suita |translator2-first=Kazo |location=Tokyo |publisher=Keibunkan |year=1925}}
• {{cite book|title=The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature. Volume 1: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945 |publisher=Columbia University Press |editor1-first=J. Thomas |editor1-last=Rimer |editor2-first=Van C. |editor2-last=Gessel |year=2007 |translator-last=Torrance |translator-first=Richard |last=Masamune |first=Hakuchō |chapter=The Clay Doll (Doro ningyō) |location=New York}}
• {{cite book|title=The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama |publisher=Columbia University Press |editor1-first=J. Thomas |editor1-last=Rimer |editor2-first=Mitsuya |editor2-last=Mori |editor3-first=M. Cody |editor3-last=Poulton |year=2014 |translator-last=Gillespie |translator-first=John K. |last=Masamune |first=Hakuchō |chapter=The Couple Next Door (Tonari no fūfu) |location=New York}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category|Masamune Hakucho}}

• {{Gutenberg author | id=36116| name=Hakuchō Masamune}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Hakuchō Masamune}}
• {{Librivox author |id=10494}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100221175117/http://www.jlit.net/authors_works/brief_bios/modern_briefs_j_to_m.html Jlit entry]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Masamune, Hakucho}}

Category:Japanese writers

Category:1962 deaths

Category:1879 births

Category:Recipients of the Order of Culture

Category:Yomiuri Prize winners

Category:Pseudonymous writers

Category:People from Bizen, Okayama