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Takiji Kobayashi

Japanese writer

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Biography

Kobayashi was born in Odate, Akita, Japan. At the age of four, his family moved to Otaru, Hokkaido. The family was not wealthy, but Kobayashi's uncle paid his schooling expenses and he was able to attend Hokkaido Otaru Commercial High School and Otaru Commercial School of Higher Learning, which is the current Otaru University of Commerce. While studying, he became interested in writing, and submitted essays to literary magazines, served in the editorial committee for his school's alumni association magazine, and also had his own writing published. One of his teachers at school was economist, critic, and poet Nobuyuki Okuma. Around this time, due to financial hardship and the current economic recession of the time, he joined the labour movement.

After graduating from school, he worked in the Otaru branch of the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank. In the 1928 general election, Kobayashi helped with election candidate Kenzo Yamamoto's campaign, and went to Yamamoto's campaign speech in a village at the base of Mount Yōtei. This experience was later incorporated into his book Higashikutchankō (東倶知安行). In the same year, his story March 15, 1928 (based on the March 15 incident) was published in the literary magazine Senki ("Standard of Battle" in Japanese). The story depicted torture by the Tokkō special higher police, which in turn infuriated government officials.

In 1929, Kobayashi's novel Kanikōsen about a crab-fishing and canning ship's crew determined to stand up to a cruel manager under harsh conditions was published in Senki. It quickly gained attention and notoriety, and became a standard-bearer of Marxist proletarian literature. In July of that year, it was adapted into a theatrical performance and was performed at the Imperial Garden Theater under the title North of latitude 50 degrees north (北緯五十度以北). The full text of Kanikōsen, now the length of a short novel, was not available in Japan until 1948. Kanikōsen was subsequently published three times translated into English as The Cannery Boat (1933), The Factory Ship (1973), and The Crab Cannery Ship (2013), as well as in other languages.

Also in 1929, Kobayashi published The Absentee Landlord, after having worked on several versions. This book describes the hard life of local or immigrant tenant farmers on the northern island of Hokkaido, and their struggle with the way they are treated by rich landowners, as Japan was making efforts to strengthen its colonization of this island and to develop its agriculture and industry. The story is located in the unnamed village of 'S.', close to the town of Asahikawa, along the Ishikari River valley, about 80 miles North East of Otaru where Kobayashi was living.

The police (in particular the Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu or Tokkō) marked Kobayashi for surveillance, and in the same year the publication of his new book "Absentee Landlord" (不在地主, Fuzaijinushi) in the Chūōkōron magazine became grounds for his dismissal from his job at the bank.

In the spring of 1930, Kobayashi moved to Tokyo and became the secretary general of the Proletarian Writer's Guild of Japan. On May 23 he was arrested on suspicion of giving financial support to the Japanese Communist Party, and was temporarily released on June 7. After returning to Tokyo on June 24, he was again arrested and in July, due to Kanikōsen he was further indicted on charges of Lèse majesté. In August, he was prosecuted under the Public Order and Police Law of 1900 and was imprisoned in Toyotama Penitentiary. On January 22, 1931, he was released on bail. He then secluded himself at the Nanasawa Hot Spring in Kanagawa Prefecture. In October 1931, Kobayashi officially became a member of the outlawed Japan Communist Party.

In November, he visited the house of Naoya Shiga in Nara Prefecture, and in the spring of 1932, he went underground.

On February 20, 1933, Kobayashi went to a meeting spot in Akasaka to meet with a fellow Communist Party member, who turned out to be a Tokkō spy who had infiltrated the party. The Tokkō were lying in wait for him, and although he tried to escape, he was captured and arrested. Kobayashi was taken to Tsukiji Police Station, where he was tortured. Police authorities announced the following day that Kobayashi had died of a heart attack. No hospital would perform an autopsy for fear of the Tokkō.

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