- Kyūya Fukada
Infobox Writer
name = Kyūya Fukada
caption = Fukada Kyūya
birthdate = birth date|1903|11|3|df=y
birthplace =Kaga, Ishikawa ,Japan
deathdate = death date and age|1971|3|21|1903|11|3|df=y
deathplace = MountKayagadake ,Yamanashi prefecture Japan
occupation = Writer
genre = non-fiction
movement =
notableworks =
influences =
influenced =nihongo|Kyūya Fukada|深田久弥|Fukada Kyūya (
3 November 1903 -21 March 1971 ) was a writer and mountaineer inShowa period Japan .Early life
Kyūya was born in what is now Kaga city,
Ishikawa prefecture . He attended theFujishima High School , followed by the preparatory school for theTokyo Imperial University , where he studied literature. During this time, he became friends withHori Tatsuo andTakami Jun . He also joined the school'smountaineering club, and took thepen-name of Kyusan (literally Nine Mountains) as his haiku pseudonym.While a student at Tokyo University, he began writing short stories, and he also fell in love with the poet Kitabatake Yao. Shortly after they started living together, he published his first work. "Orokko no musume". The work was well received by critics, emboldening him enough to quit school in 1930 and to devote his energies to writing.
Literary career
In 1932, Fukada published his next work, "Asunarao". However, leading literary critics
Kobayashi Hideo andKawabata Yasunari soon realized that "Asunarao" and his previous work "Orokko no musume" were not Fukada's works at all, but had beencopy-edit ed (or to put it less charitably, plagiarized) from the writings of Kitabatake Yao, which nearly ended his credibility as a writer.In March 1940, Fukada formally married Kitabatake Yao. However, in May 1941, Fukada happened to be reunited with his first love, Koba Shigeko (the sister of
Nakamura Mitsuo ) in a chance meeting, and by August 1942, Shigeko gave birth to his illegitimate child. His wife soon found out about the affair, and Fukada quickly enlisted in theImperial Japanese Army , asking for an immediate transfer to the front lines war-timeChina to avoid the potentially more dangerous conflict at home; he served for the next three years in front-line combat units fromTsingtao toNanjing .At the end of the war, Fukada was demobilized, and returned to Japan in 1946, but he avoided a reunion with his wife and went back to Shigeko, whom he married as soon as his divorce was finalized. However, Fukada and his new wife were forced to live in poverty over ten years, as his former wife made sure that earlier issue of his “copy editing” of her works was remembered by publishers. Partly due to the stigma he was unable to publish any works for over 10 years.
Fukada was reconciled with fellow mountaineer Kobayashi Hideo, who encouraged him to write non-fiction works about mountains and mountaineering. From 1959-1963, he wrote "Nihon Hyakumeizan" (
100 Famous Japanese Mountains ), which was an immediate hit, and which won the 16thYomiuri Prize . In 1968, Fukada was made vice-chairman of theJapan Mountaineering Association . In 1966, and again in 1969-1970, he made long journeys inCentral Asia ofChina and theSoviet Union , exploring the mountains of theSilk Road .Fukada died in March 1971 near the summit of Mount
Kayagadake (1704 m) inYamanashi prefecture ofcerebrovascular disease . His grave is at the temple of Honko-ji in Daishoji-machi, Kaga city, Ishikawa prefecture.Fukada was honored by the
Japanese government with acommemorative postage stamp issued on1 July 2003 .ee also
*
Japanese literature
*List of Japanese authors
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