Masao Kume

Kume Masao (Japanese久 米 正雄; born November 23, 1891 in Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, † March 1, 1952 in Kamakura ) was a Japanese writer.

Life

Kumes father was director of the school Seimei, the urban primary school in Ueda. He committed suicide and assumed a responsibility for ensuring that burned in a fire at the school, whose director he was, the image of the Tenno and his wife. Kume then grew up in the home of his mother, in Kōriyama on in Fukushima Prefecture. As a student of Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied English literature, he published the third edition of the literary journal Shinshichō (新 思潮) together with Seiichi Naruse ( 1892-1936 ) and Yuzuru Matsuoka ( 1891-1969 ). In 1914 he wrote the play Gyūnyūya no Kyodai (牛乳屋 の 兄弟, approximately: The siblings of the milk business ). From 1915 he was together with Akutagawa student of Soseki Natsume. He has published short stories as well as the spectacle Abukuma Shinju (阿 武 隈 心中). Around this time, he had a relationship with the writer Yuriko Miyamoto. The following year, 1916, he published the fourth edition of Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Shinshichō with Kikuchi Kan. He entered the house of Soseki and off. After the sudden death of Sōsekis end of 1916 asked Kume Sōsekis widow Kyoko to marry her eldest daughter. Then reached a diatribe Sōsekis house, was defamed in the Kume as impotent Filou. Ultimately Sōsekis married daughter the man with whom she had fallen in love, Yuzuru Matsuoka.

Kume was disappointed to Tokyo and with Kikuchi Kan published entertainment novels. He also devoted himself increasingly to theater and founded in 1918, Osanai Kaoru Kubota Mantaro and the Kokumin Bungeikai (国民 文 芸 会). In 1923 he married his wife Tsuyako. He also wrote literary criticism and translated works of European writers, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, as well as works of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. As a haiku poet, he was a student of Kawahigashi Hekito and under the name Santei published (三 汀) several books of poetry. From 1925 until his death he lived in Kamakura. In 1929, he toured Europe for a year. In 1933, he ventured a trip iin politics and stood for election as mayor of Kamakura and successor of Tanzan Ishibashi. It was during an excursion into politics, since he was arrested in the same year along with Matsutaro Kawaguchi and sound Satomi for illegal card game. From 1938 on, he worked as head of the Mainichi Shinbun later in Tokyo.

He died in 1952 at the age of 60 of a stroke.

Works (selection)

The story portrays the view of the eight-year Tatsuo his father's suicide. The story bears clear autobiographical elements from the life Kumes. It begins with a review of a beautiful yet unusual for Tatsuo spring day, two days before the suicide. The world seems to be in order on this day, except that Tatsuo torment on the school home stomach pain. His father, whom he meets on the doorstep, recognizes the situation and solidarisisert with his son. During Tatsuo is sitting back in his room, it wants the still unsuspecting seem like sitting in a dark corner of the room a monster, who cast a frightening shadow of death upon him. The idea that his father would die, steals over him. He prays and considers pragmatic consequences, which is a death of the father, the headmaster of the local school, might have on his reputation and future life. The death of his tubercular sister keeps Tatsuo for predetermined, the unexpected death, however, the breaks unexpectedly, frightens him.

Noise and ringing of bells awaken Tatsuo at midnight. His father's school is on fire. Banned he observed with his brother from afar the exciting and unusual event. The next morning he runs excitedly to the remains of the school. He learns that the fire was caused due to the negligence of the school servant and that the portraits of the Tenno and his imperial consort are burned. The spectators who gather to see the school principal 's responsibility. Tatsuos father hurries visibly saddened past him home, where he retires to his study and his family prohibits access. " The next day my father died by his own hand. What had indeed reasonably feared but also held back for impossible was going to happen. " Tatsuos sister discovered the suicide, his father had carried out the rules of seppuku accordingly to take responsibility for the loss of the portraits. " At the time of the death of the door announced to door, all people spoke the evenings under the lamp on the heroic death of my father, without that they knew why his death is to be commended. " Amid great ceremony and a procession, the burial of the father held. Tatsuo is left with a feeling of sadness and grandeur, while ascribes to him a strange posh dressed man: "Be of the father's son ."

  • Chichi no Shi (父 の 死) " The death of my father ," translated by Kakuji Watanabe. In: Japanese Masters of the narrative, Walter Dorn Verlag, Bremen, 1960, pp. 57-70.
  • Abukuma Shinju, drama
  • Hotarugusa (萤 草)
  • Hare (破船)
  • Bosan (墓 参)
  • Gyūnyūya no Kyodai (牛乳屋 の 兄弟), drama
  • Maki Uta (牧 呗), Haikus
  • Kaeribana (返り 花), Haikus
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