was a

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 ...

writer. He was the first winner of the

Akutagawa Prize The is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner receives from the media, it is, along with the Naoki Prize, one of Japan's most sought after literary prizes. History Th ...

Biography

Born in Yokote, Akita Prefecture, Japan, Ishikawa was raised in several places, including

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

and Okayama Prefecture. He entered

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

's literature department but left before graduating. In 1930 he left Japan for

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and worked on a farm. Ishikawa won the first

in 1935 for ''Sōbō'' (蒼氓), a novel based on his experiences in Brazil. In December 1937, Ishikawa was dispatched to

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

as a special reporter by the ''Chūō Kōron'' publishing company. After landing in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, he arrived in

in January 1938, weeks after the fall of the city to 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 ...

. Embedded within an army unit later connected to the

Nanking Massacre The Nanjing Massacre (, ja, 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the ...

, Ishikawa wrote a fictional account (''Ikite iru Heitai'' 生きている兵隊) of the atrocities suffered by Chinese civilians as well as the widespread pessimism of the Japanese soldiers. Due to its controversial subject matter, nearly one-fourth of its contents was censored even before it was scheduled to be serialized in ''Chūō Kōron''. Still, the magazine was removed from circulation the day it was published and Ishikawa, the editor, and three publishers were arrested under the 23rd article of the "Newspaper Law" (''Shinbunshi Hō'' 新聞紙法) for "causing disturbance to peace and order". Ishikawa was sentenced to four months imprisonment and placed on probation for three years. ''Ikite iru Heitai'' was not to be published in its entirety until after the war, in December 1945. For a complete English translation, see ''Soldiers Alive'' (Trans. Zeljko Cipris, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003). In 1946, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the lower house of the Diet of Japan in the

1946 Japanese general election General elections were held in Japan on 10 April 1946, the first after World War II. Voters had one, two or three votes, depending on how many MPs were elected from their constituency. The result was a victory for the Liberal Party, which won 14 ...

. Ishikawa continued to be an active writer after the war, and in 1969, he won the

Kikuchi Kan Prize The honors achievement in all aspects of Japanese literary culture. It was named in honor of Kikuchi Kan. The prize is presented annually by the literary magazine '' Bungei Shunjū'' and the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature. Hist ...

(''Kikuchi Kan Shō'' 菊池寛賞) for his contributions to Japanese literature. He was an active member of the Japan Art Academy. He died in Tokyo in 1985.

Bibliography

* ''Sōbō'' (蒼氓) ( 1935) * ''Ikite iru Heitai'' (生きている兵隊, Soldiers Alive) –

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which Nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been used in combat. Events Below, ...

/ English translation: 2003 * ''Kinkanshoku'' (金鐶蝕) ( 1966)

Awards

* 1935 –

for ''Sōbō'' (蒼氓) *

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

–

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ishikawa, Tatsuzo 1905 births 1985 deaths People from Yokote, Akita 20th-century Japanese novelists Writers from Akita Prefecture Akutagawa Prize winners Japanese war correspondents Members of the Japan Art Academy Japanese prisoners and detainees