Atsushi Nakajima

Atsushi Nakajima (Japanese中 岛 敦; born May 5, 1909 in Yotsuya; † December 4, 1942 ) was a Japanese writer.

Nakajima studied after attending the high school from 1930 to 1934 Japanese literature at the University of Tokyo. Then he taught until 1941 at the Women's High School in Yokohama. During this time he made his debut as a writer with the narrative Toragari which he submitted in 1934 to a competition for young writers of the magazine Chūō Coron.

From 1941 Nakajima lived on the Palau Islands and taught the children of the members of the Japanese occupation administration there. Here he completed the Novella Tsushitara no shi about the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. His story Hikari to kaze to yume was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize.

In March 1942, Nakajima, who suffered all his life from asthma, returned for health reasons to Japan in order to devote himself entirely to writing. However, he died the same year from the effects of his illness. He left only a narrow literary work consisting of a few short stories and a biographical essay on the life of Stevenson in Samoa ( Riryō, published in 1943) is.

As one of the first Japanese writer Nakajima rezipierte the work of Franz Kafka, as its from its transformation influenced the narrative Rōshitsuki (published in 1942) occupied. The edition of his complete works Nakajima Atsuji Zenshu in 1949 awarded the Mainichi Cultural Prize.