was a

Japanese author This is an alphabetical list of writers who are Japanese, or are famous for having written in the Japanese language. Writers are listed by the native order of Japanese names, family name followed by given name to ensure consistency although some ...

, who established literary criticism as an independent art form in Japan.

Early life

Kobayashi was born in the

Kanda Kanda may refer to: People * Kanda (surname) *Kanda Bongo Man (born 1955), Congolese soukous musician Places * Kanda, Tokyo, an area in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan **Kanda Station (Tokyo), a railway station in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo * Kanda River, a ri ...

district of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, where his father was a noted engineer who introduced European diamond polishing technology to Japan, and who invented a ruby-based phonograph needle. Kobayashi studied

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than F ...

Tokyo Imperial University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

, where his classmates included

Hidemi Kon was a literary critic and essayist active in Japan during the Shōwa period. Early life Born in Hakodate, Hokkaidō, Kon Hidemi was the younger brother of writer, politician and Buddhist priest Kon Tōkō. His father was a captain of a steamer o ...

and

Tatsuji Miyoshi was a Japanese poet, literary critic, and literary editor active during the Shōwa period of Japan. He is known for his lengthy free verse poetry, which often portray loneliness and isolation as part of contemporary life, but which are written ...

. He met Chūya Nakahara in April 1925, with whom he quickly became close friends, but in November of the same year, began living together with Nakahara's former mistress, the actress Yasuko Hasegawa. Kobayashi graduated in March 1928, and soon after moved to

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

for a few months before moving to

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...

, where he stayed at the home of

Naoya Shiga was a Japanese writer active during the Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan, whose work was distinguished by its lucid, straightforward style and strong autobiographical overtones. Early life Shiga was born in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, ...

from May 1928. His relationship with Yasuko Hasegawa ended around this time. In September 1929, he submitted an article to a contest hed by the literary journal ''

Kaizō ''Kaizō'' (改造 ''kaizō'') was a Japanese general-interest magazine that started publication during the Taishō period and printed many articles of socialist content. ''Kaizō'' can be translated into English as "Reorganize", "Restructure" ...

,'' and won second place.

Literary critic

In the early 1930s Kobayashi was associated with the novelists

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal a ...

and

Riichi Yokomitsu was an experimental, modernist Japanese writer. Yokomitsu began publishing in dōjinshi such as ''Machi'' ("Street") and ''Tō'' ("Tower") after entering Waseda University in 1916. In 1923, he published ''Nichirin'' ("The Sun"), '' ...

and collaborated on articles for the literary journal ''

Bungakukai is a Japanese monthly literary magazine published by Bungeishunjū as a oriented publication. History and profile The first version of ''Bungakukai'' was published from 1893 to 1898. The founders were the first generation romantic authors in t ...

'' and became editor in January 1935. At that time Kobayashi felt literature should be relevant to society, with writers and critics practicing social responsibilities. His editorials covered a wide range from contemporary literature to the classics, philosophy, and the arts. He began to serialize his life of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the magazine. Around this time, he also published ''Watakushi Shosetsu Ron'', an attack on the popular Japanese literary genre of the ''shishosetsu'', the

autobiographical novel An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction. Bec ...

or ''

I Novel The I-novel (, , ) is a literary genre in Japanese literature used to describe a type of confessional literature where the events in the story correspond to events in the author's life. This genre was founded based on the Japanese reception of na ...

''. From April 1932, he was also working as a lecturer at Meiji University and was promoted to professor in June 1938. By the mid-1930s, Kobayashi was well established as a literary critic. His aversion to abstract ideas, and conceptualizing in general, was widely known, as was his preference for spontaneity and intuition. In literature, he reserved his highest praise for the works of

Kan Kikuchi , also known as Kan Kikuchi (which uses the same kanji as his real name), was a Japanese author. He established the publishing company Bungeishunjū, the monthly magazine Bungeishunjū (magazine), of the same name, the Japan Writer's Association ...

and Naoya Shiga, whereas he expressed a low opinion of

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , art name , was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He committed suicide at the age of ...

for being too cerebral. He made Kamakura,

Kanagawa prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanag ...

his home from 1931 and was a central figure in local literary activity.

Wartime propagandist

In politics, Kobayashi praised the writings of militant nationalist

Shūmei Ōkawa was a Japanese nationalist and Pan-Asianist writer, known for his publications on Japanese history, philosophy of religion, Indian philosophy, and colonialism. Background Ōkawa was born in Sakata, Yamagata, Japan in 1886. He graduated fro ...

. In November 1937, he wrote a strongly worded essay ''Senso ni tsuite'' ("On War"), which appeared in a leading intellectual magazine, ''Kaizō''. In the essay, he lashed out at fellow writers and intellectuals who continued to oppose the growing war in China, sharply reminding them that their duty as subjects of the emperor took precedence over all else. It made little difference what the war is about, all that mattered was that it existed and must be dealt with. Kobayashi treated the war as if it were an act of nature, such as a storm, impervious to analysis and beyond human control. Just as a storm must be weathered, a war must be won, regardless of right or wrong. Kobayashi went to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

for the first time in March 1938 as a special correspondent for the popular magazine ''

Bungeishunjū is a Japanese publishing company known for its leading monthly magazine '' Bungeishunjū''. The company was founded by Kan Kikuchi in 1923. It grants the annual Akutagawa Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in Japan, as well as ...

'', and as a guest of the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

. This was the first of six wartime trips to the continent, which took him through Japanese-occupied areas of eastern and northern China. In 1940, together with Kan Kikuchi and fifty-two other writers including Kawabata Yasunari and Riichi Yokomitsu, Kobayashi toured Japan,

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, and Manchukou as members of the Literary Home-Front Campaign (''Bungei Jugo Undo''), a speech-making troupe organized by Kikuchi to promote support for the war.

Later career

Following the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Kobayashi was sharply attacked by leftists for his collaboration with the Japanese military, but the US occupation authorities never filed any charges against him, and he was not even

purged In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...

from public life. Kobayashi's reputation as a brilliant literary critic emerged from the war largely intact. He resigned from teaching at Meiji University in August 1946. An anthology of his works was awarded the Japan Art Academy Prize in 1951. In the post-war period, Kobayashi started a business as an antique dealer (amassing a considerable collection of Japanese art in the process), traveled to Europe, wrote essays and gave lectures on a huge variety of subjects, made

radio broadcast Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

s, took part in dialogues with writers, artists and scientists, and wrote about

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

. His ''Watashi no jinseikan'' ("My View of Life") and ''Kangaeru hinto'' ("Hints for Thinking") became bestsellers. 　 In 1958, Kobayashi was awarded the

Noma Literary Prize The Noma Literary Prize (''Noma Bungei Shō'') was established in 1941 by the Noma Service Association (''Noma Hōkō Kai'') in accordance with the last wishes of Seiji Noma (1878–1938), founder and first president of the Kodansha publishing c ...

for ''Kindai kaiga'' ("Modern Paintings"). Kobayashi became a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1959, and was awarded the

Order of Culture The is a Japanese order, established on February 11, 1937. The order has one class only, and may be awarded to men and women for contributions to Japan's art, literature, science, technology, or anything related to culture in general; recipient ...

by the Japanese government in 1967. Kobayashi died of

renal failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

on March 1, 1983. His grave is at the temple of

Tōkei-ji , also known as or , is a Buddhist temple and a former nunnery, the only survivor of a network of five nunneries called , in the city of Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is part of the Rinzai school of Zen's Engaku-ji branch, and was o ...

in Kamakura.

Honours and awards

* 1953 -

Yomiuri Prize The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shinbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone. Award categories For the first two years, ...

* 1958 -

* 1959 - Japan Art Academy member * 1963 - Person of Cultural Merit * 1967 -

Legacy

The Kobayashi Hideo Prize (''Kobayashi Hideo Shō'') was established in 2002 by the ''Shinchō Bungei Shinkō Kai'' (Shinchō Society for the Promotion of the Literary Arts). It is awarded annually to a work of nonfiction published in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, between July 1 and the following June 30, that offers a fresh image of the world based on the demonstration of a free spirit and supple intellect. The winner receives a commemorative gift and a cash award of 1 million

yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar (US$) and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the e ...

External links

Japan Focus article on Kobayashi HideoSite on Shinchosha Publishing Company (Japanese)

References

* Anderer, Paul. ed. ''Literature of the Lost Home: Kobayashi Hideo Literary Criticism, 1924-1939''. Stanford University Press (1995). *Dorsey, James. _Critical Aesthetics: Kobayashi Hideo, Modernity, and Wartime Japan_ (Harvard Asia Center/Harvard UP, 2009). ; * Takamizawa, Junko. ''My Brother Hideo Kobayashi''. University of Hawaii Press (2001). {{DEFAULTSORT:Kobayashi, Hideo 1902 births 1983 deaths 20th-century Japanese male writers Japanese literary critics Writers from Tokyo University of Tokyo alumni Recipients of the Order of Culture Deaths from kidney failure 20th-century Japanese writers