Kafū Nagai

Kafū Nagai
Kafū Nagai in 1927
Born	Nagai Sōkichi December 3, 1879(1879-12-03) Tokyo, Japan
Died	April 30, 1959(1959-04-30) (aged 79) Ichikawa, Japan
Occupation	Author, translator
Nationality	Japan
Subjects	French literature, Japanese-Edo literature
Literary movement	Aestheticism

Kafū Nagai (永井 荷風, Nagai Kafū^?, December 3, 1879 - April 30, 1959) is the pen name of Japanese author, playwright, essayist, and diarist Nagai Sōkichi (永井 壮吉). His works are noted for their depictions of life in early 20th-century Tokyo, especially among geisha, prostitutes, cabaret dancers, and other denizens of the city's lively entertainment districts.

Biography

Kafū was born at Kanetomi-chō 45, Koishikawa-ku (now Kasuga-chō, Bunkyō, Tokyo), the eldest son of Nagai Kyūichirō (永井 久一郎), his father, who was then 28 years old, and Nagai Tsune (永井 恆), then 19. Kyūichirō was a scholar, bureaucrat, and businessman who later became known for his Chinese poetry. Kafū had three brothers and one sister. When the second son was born in 1883, Kafū was sent to live with his mother's family. In 1884, he attended the kindergarten affiliated with the Ochanomizu women's teachers' college, and his father visited Europe on government business. Kafū returned to his parents' home in January 1886, when he entered elementary school.

In 1891, he attended a private English-language school in Kanda, Tokyo. In 1894, he became ill, perhaps with scrofula, and spent several months in 1895 in a hospital in Odawara. He began studying the shakuhachi and Chinese poetry in 1896 at the age of 17. In February of the following year, he made his first of many visits to the Yoshiwara red-light district. The same year, he graduated from middle school and failed the entrance exam for university. With his mother and younger brothers, he visited Shanghai, where his father was then working for the shipping company Nippon Yusen. He returned to Japan in the autumn and enrolled in the Chinese-language department of the institutions for foreign-language educations affiliated with the Higher Commercial School.

In 1898, he began writing short stories and studied with the novelist Hirotsu Ryūrō (広津 柳浪), and in 1899 he became involved in writing and performing rakugo and dropped out of the foreign-language school. In 1900, he began publishing short stories. In 1901, he got a job briefly as a newspaper reporter and later began studying French.

The following timeline is based on notes that he appended to the 11th handwritten volume of Danchōtei Nichijō:

• 1903: Travels to the United States. Stays in Tacoma, Washington.
• 1904: Visits the St. Louis Exposition. Enrolls in Kalamazoo College in Michigan.
• 1905: Moves to New York City and begins working for a Japanese bank.
• 1906: Travels to Lyon, Paris, and London, and then returns to Japan. Publishes American Stories.
• 1907: Publishes Furansu Monogatari (French Stories), which is immediately suppressed.
• 1908 - 1911: Has many stories published and some plays performed. Studies at Kalamazoo College, in Michigan.
• 1912: Marries.
• 1913: Father dies. Publishes collection of translated poems. Gets divorced. Takes on a mistress.
• 1914: Marries again.
• 1915: Anthology of works published. Divorces again. Lives for several months in a geisha house.
• 1916: Launches a literary magazine.
• 1918: First volume of collected works published.
• 1919: Second and third volumes of collected works published. Takes on a mistress.
• 1920: Play performed at Imperial Theater. Lets mistress go.
• 1921 - 1922: Several plays performed in Tokyo.
• 1923 - 1944: Continues to write, though publications become less frequent.
• 1945: Tokyo home destroyed in air raids. Moves to apartment, which is also destroyed.

During World War II, the number of Japanese literature published was limited due to extreme censorship from the government in order to encourage artists and writers to direct their focus towards the war effort. Though there were very few works published during wartime, Nagai Kafu became one of the rebels who opposed the government and continued to write. As a result, he was able to maintain his status as a popular novelist throughout the war. After the war, many Japanese authors were emotionally and psychologically affected and the aftereffects began to show in numerous Japanese literatures. Story plot, poem topics and essay ideas were all related to death, disease, despair and defeat. However, since Nagai Kafu did not contribute to the war effort, he was not influenced as heavily with defeat as other Japanese individuals. Thus, he continued to write about the things he loved in life which were mainly Geishas, prostitutes and dancers. Nagai Kafu continued writing both plays and novels until his death on April 30, 1959 from a gastric ulcer.

Kafū continued to write and keep his diary until his death in 1959. The edition of his collected works published by Iwanami Shoten in the 1990s runs to 30 volumes.

Writing style

Nagai's writing style varied depending on his genre and audience. Reflecting his study of classical Chinese and his wide reading of premodern Japanese texts, his diaries and some of his essays are written in the highly literary bungo (文語) style. Most of his plays and novels, in contrast, are written in a modern style typical of the era in which he wrote, and the dialogue spoken by his characters seems particularly natural and unaffected.

Major works

Among Nagai's major works are:

• American Stories (あめりか物語, Amerika Monogatari, 1908)
• Geisha in Rivalry (腕くらべ, Ude Kurabe, 1916-1917)
• A Strange Tale from East of the River (濹東綺譚, Bokutō Kidan, 1937)
• His diaries, especially Danchōtei Nichijō (断腸亭日乗, written 1917-1959)
• During the Rains & Flowers in the Shade
• Sumida River (すみだ川, Sumidagawa, 1911)

External links

• Works by Kafū Nagai at Project Gutenberg (Japanese)

See also

• Japanese literature
• List of Japanese authors
• Kafū Nagai's grave

Persondata
Name	Nagai, Kafu
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1879
Place of birth
Date of death	1959
Place of death