was the pen name of Sano Shōichi (佐野 昌一), the founding father of
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
. He was born to a family of medical doctors in
Tokushima
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 728,633 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,146 km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the north, E ...
city. In 1928 he opened his writer’s career with ''The case of the mysterious death in the electric bath'' (''Denkifuro no kaishijiken'').
During the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
he wrote a great number of science-fiction novels, remaining in Tokyo throughout the air raids. Japan’s defeat in
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 ...
was for him a hard blow, and Unno spent the last years in his life in a deeply prostrated state.
Unno's scientific work was influenced by that of
Jūzō Okita
This list of ''Space Battleship Yamato'' characters is a list, with biographical details, of major characters appearing in the anime series ''Space Battleship Yamato'' and its American dubbed version, '' Star Blazers'', as well as the 2010 live-a ...
'' of
Space Battleship Yamato
is a Japanese science fiction anime series produced and written by Yoshinobu Nishizaki, directed by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto, and produced by Academy Productions. The series aired in Yomiuri TV from October 6, 1974 to March 30, 1975, ...
* ''Fast Forward Japan: Stories by the Founding Father of Japanese Science Fiction'' [includes: Eighteen O'Clock Music Bath (十八時の音楽浴), The Theory of Planetary Colonization, The World in One Thousand Years, Four-Dimensional Man, Mysterious Spatial Rift, The Living Intestine, Crematoria, The Last Broadcast, Adventures of the Dinosaur-Craft] (ISBN: 978-1737318217)
* ''The Secret of the Cosmic Dust'' (ある宇宙塵の秘密). Translated by Till Weingärtner. The Irish Journal of Asian Studies Vol.7, 2021 (ISSN: 2009-8448).
Aozora Bunko
Aozora Bunko (, literally the "Blue Sky Library", also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousands of works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-o ...
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and f ...