was a Japanese novelist and essayist.
Naka was born in
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 ...
. He lived in
Hiratsuka from 1926 to 1932, and he was evacuated to
Shizuoka Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...
during
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 ...
, but otherwise he spent most of his life in Tokyo. He married Kazuko Shimada in 1942.
Naka was one of the students taught by
Natsume Sōseki at the
University of Tokyo before Sōseki gave up teaching to write for the newspaper ''
Asahi Shimbun''. It was Sōseki who arranged the serial publication in that paper of Naka's first novel, a nostalgic depiction of his childhood and teens to which he gave the title ''Gin no saji'' ("The Silver Spoon", 1911–13, tr. 1976 by Etsuko Terasaki). The novel is popular in Japan and is an account of life in Tokyo at the beginning of the 20th century during the Meiji era, replete with historical details as well as a contemporary sense of isolation; it follows Naka's psychological journey from childhood to adulthood. Naka also wrote ''Inu'' ("The Dog", 1922) and ''Rōkan'' (a collection of poems, 1935).
Naka was praised by
Tetsurō Watsuji, a leading critic, and also by
Zhou Zuoren, for his rare willingness to criticize Japanese nationalists.
[Yan Lu. ''Re-Understanding Japan: Chinese Perspectives, 1895-1945.'' University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Page 223.]
Notes
Bibliography
*Kansuke Naka, ''The Silver Spoon'', translated by Etsuko Terasaki, ''Chicago Review'' Press, distributed by Swallow Press, 1976.
*Louis Frédéric, entry on Naka in the ''Japan Encyclopedia'', translated by Käthe Roth, Harvard University Press, 2005, page 689.
*Kansuke Naka, ''The Silver Spoon'', translated by Hiroaki Sato, Stone Bridge Press, 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naka, Kansuke
Japanese writers
1885 births
1965 deaths