Hirotsu Ryurō

Infobox Writer
name = Hirotsu Ryurō

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caption = Hirotsu Ryurō
birthdate = birth date|1861|7|15|df=y
birthplace = Nagasaki, Japan
deathdate = death date and age|1928|10|25|1861|7|15|df=y
deathplace = Tokyo Japan (?)
occupation = Writer
genre = novels
movement = Tragic Novel
notableworks =
influences =
influenced =

nihongo|Hirotsu Ryurō|広津 柳浪|Hirotsu Ryurō (15 July 1861 - 25 October 1928) was the pen-name of a novelist in Meiji period Japan. He is credited with the creation of the genre in Japanese literature of nihongo|tragic novel|悲惨小説|hisan shosetsu. His real name was Hirotsu Naoto.

Early life

Ryurō was born in Nagasaki, Buzen province (present-day Nagasaki prefecture), to a "samurai-"class family originally from Kurume domain. His father had been trained as a doctor, and was in Nagasaki studying western medicine at the time of the Meiji Restoration. Under the new Meiji government, he became a diplomat, and was involved in the "Seikanron" issue between Japan and Korea.

Ryurō was sent to Tokyo in 1874 to study the German language, and subsequently enrolled in the medical preparatory school of Tokyo Imperial University, but left without graduating in 1877. The following year, at the invitation of his father's friend Godai Tomoatsu, he moved to Osaka, and obtained a position as a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce from 1881-1885. Around this time, he read the Chinese literature classic Outlaws of the Marsh and the Japanese fantasy novel "Nansō Satomi Hakkenden" by Kyokutei Bakin. These works, and the death of his father, was a turning point in his life, and he decided to abandon his secure career in the government for life as a writer.

Literary career

In 1899, Ryurō met Ozaki Koyo, and joined his literary group "Ken'yusha". In 1895, he published two novels which enabled him to achieve literary recognition: "Hemeden" and "Kurotogake". These were the first of a new genre in Japanese literature, the "tragic novel", which he created. Heavily influenced by earlier Edo period "gesaku" writing, his stories are filled with improbable or incredible events, melodrama, romanticism and rather wooden characterization. His plots are typified by an inexorable progression of the protagonist through a series of pathetic and wretched experiences towards destruction dictated by an inflexible fate. His most famous work, "Imado Shinju" ("Suicide at Imado") was published in 1896.

Ryurō retired from writing in 1908, and died of a heart attack in 1928. His grave is at the Yanaka Cemetery in Tokyo. The writer Hirotsu Kazuo is his son.

ee also

* Japanese literature
* List of Japanese authors

External links

* [http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/person295.html E-texts of works] at Aozora Bunko (Japanese site)
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6136018 Findagrave site]