was a Japanese novelist, poet, and children's literature writer from Hanamaki, Iwate, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He was also known as an agricultural science teacher, vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, and utopian social activist.Curley, Melissa Anne-Marie, "Fruit, Fossils, Footprints: Cathecting Utopia in the Work of Miyazawa Kenji", in Daniel Boscaljon (ed.), Hope and the Longing for Utopia: Futures and Illusions in Theology and Narrative, James Clarke & Co. Lutterworth Press 2015. pp. 96–118.
Some of his major works include Night on the Galactic Railroad, Kaze no Matasaburō, Gauche the Cellist, and The Night of Taneyamagahara. Miyazawa converted to Nichiren Buddhism after reading the Lotus Sutra, and joined the Kokuchūkai, a Nichiren Buddhist organization. His religious and social beliefs created a rift between him and his wealthy family, especially his father, though after his death his family eventually followed him in converting to Nichiren Buddhism. Miyazawa founded the Rasu Farmers Association to improve the lives of peasants in Iwate Prefecture. He was also interested in Esperanto and translated some of his poems into it.David Poulson, Miyazawa Kenji.
He died of pneumonia in 1933. Almost totally unknown as a poet in his lifetime, Miyazawa's work gained its reputation posthumously,Makoto Ueda, Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature, Stanford University Press, 1983 pp. 184–320. and enjoyed a boom by the mid-1990s on his centenary.Kilpatrick 2014, pp. 11–25. A museum dedicated to his life and works was opened in 1982 in his hometown. Many of his children's stories have been adapted into anime, most notably Night on the Galactic Railroad. Many of his tanka and free verse poetry, translated into many languages, are still popular today.
Biography
Miyazawa was born in the town of Hanamaki,Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan article "Miyazawa Kenji" (p. 222–223). 1983. Tokyo: Kodansha. Iwate, the eldest son. of a wealthy pawnbroking couple, Masajirō and his wife Ichi.Massimo Cimarelli (ed.tr.), Miyazawa Kenji: Il drago e il poeta, Volume Edizioni srl, 2014 p.3Keene 1999, p. 284. The family were also pious followers of the Pure Land Sect, as were generally the farmers in that district. His father, from 1898 onwards, organized regular meetings in the district where monks and Buddhist thinkers gave lectures and Miyazawa, together with his younger sister, took part in these meetings from an early age. The area was an impoverished rice-growing region, and he grew to be troubled by his family's interest in money-making and social status. Miyazawa was a keen student of natural history from an early age, and also developed an interest as a teenager in poetry, coming under the influence of a local poet, Takuboku Ishikawa. After graduating from middle school, he helped out in his father's pawnshop.Ueda p.217 By 1918, he was writing in the tanka genre, and had already composed two tales for children. In high school he converted to the Hokke sect after reading the Lotus Sutra, a move which was to bring him into conflict with his father. In 1918, he graduated from . He embraced vegetarianism in the same year. A bright student, he was then given a position as a special research student in geology, developing an interest in soil science and in fertilizers. Later in 1918, he and his mother went to Tokyo to look after his younger sister , who had fallen ill while studying in Japan Women's University He returned home after his sister had recovered early the following year.Keene 1999, pp. 284–285.
As a result of differences with his father over religion, his repugnance for commerce, and the family pawnshop business in particular (he yielded his inheritance to his younger brother Seiroku), he left Hanamaki for Tokyo in January 1921. There, he joined Tanaka Chigaku's Kokuchūkai, and spent several months in dire poverty preaching Nichiren Buddhism in the streets. After eight months in Tokyo, he took once more to writing children's stories, this time prolifically, under the influence of another Nichiren priest, Takachiyo Chiyō, who dissuaded him from the priesthood by convincing him that Nichiren believers best served their faith by striving to embody it in their profession. He returned to Hanamaki due to the renewed illness of his beloved younger sister.Keene 1999, p. 285. At this time he became a teacher at the Agricultural School in Hanamaki. On November 27, 1922, Toshi finally succumbed to her illness and died at age 24. This was a traumatic shock for Miyazawa, from which he never recovered. He composed three poems on the day of her death, collectively entitled .Miyakubo and Matsukawa 2013, p. 169.
He found employment as a teacher in agricultural science at Hanamaki Agricultural High School (花巻農学校). He managed to put out a collection of poetry, in April 1924, thanks to some borrowings and a major grant from a producer of nattō.Hoyt Long ,On Uneven Ground: Miyazawa Kenji and the Making of Place in Modern Japan, Stanford University Press, 2011 p.369 n.5 His collection of children's stories and fairy tales, Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten (注文の多い料理店, "The Restaurant of Many Orders"), also self-published, came out in December of the same year. Although neither were commercial successes — they were largely ignored — his work did come to the attention of the poets Kōtarō Takamura and Shinpei Kusano, who admired his writing greatly and introduced it to the literary world.
Kenji resigned his post as a teacher in 1926 to become a farmer and help improve the lot of the other farmers in the impoverished north-eastern region of Japan by sharing his theoretical knowledge of agricultural science,Keene 1999, p. 288. by imparting to them improved, modern techniques of cultivation. He also taught his fellow farmers more general topics of cultural value, such as music, poetry, and whatever else he thought might improve their lives. He introduced them to classical music by playing to audiences compositions from Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner and Debussy on his gramophone.Margaret Mitsutani, "The Regional as the Center: The Poetry of Miyazawa Kenji", in Klaus Martens, Paul Duncan Morris, Arlette Warken (eds.) A World of Local Voices: Poetry in English Today, Königshausen & Neumann, 2003 pp.66–72 p.67. In August 1926 he established the . When asked what "Rasuchijin" meant, he said it meant nothing in particular, but he was probably thinking of and . He introduced new agricultural techniques and more resistant strains of rice.Mitsutani p.67. At the detached house of his family, where he was staying at the time, he gathered a group of youths from nearby farming families and lectured on agronomy. The Rasuchijin Society also engaged in literary readings, plays, music and other cultural activities. It was disbanded after two years as Japan was being swept up by a militarist turn, in 1928, when the authorities closed it down.
Not all of the local farmers were grateful for his efforts, with some sneering at the idea of a city-slicker playing farmer, and others expressing disappointment that the fertilizers Kenji introduced were not having the desired effects.Keene 1999, p. 289. He advocated natural fertilizers, while many preferred a Western chemical 'fix', which, when it failed, did not stop many from blaming Kenji. Their reservations may have also persisted as he had not wholly broken from economic dependence on his father, to whom farmers were often indebted when their crops failed, in addition to his defection to the Lotus Sect soured their view, as farmers in his area were, like his own father, adherents of the Pure Land Sect. Kenji in turn did not hold an ideal view of the farmers; in one of his poems he describes how a farmer bluntly tells him that all his efforts have done no good for anyone.Keene 1999, p. 289, citing (note 197, p. 379) Miyazawa Kenji 1968, p. 311–314.
According to Sibayama Zyun'iti, he started learning Esperanto in 1926, but never reached a high level in the language.Miyamoto Masao and Sibayama Zyun'iti: Poemoj de MIYAZAWA Kenzi, memtradukitaj esperanten He also studied English and German. At some point he translated some of his poems into Esperanto; the translated pieces were published in 1953, long after his death. According to Jouko Lindstedt, Kenji was made interested in Esperanto by the Finnish scientist and Esperantist Gustaf John Ramstedt, who was working as a diplomat for Finland in Japan.Jouko Lindstedt: Scientisto, diplomato, esperantisto (part 2)
Kenji's writings from this period show sensitivity for the land and for the people who work in it. He was a prolific writer of children's stories, many of which appear superficially light or humorous but include messages intended for the moral education of the reader. He wrote some works in prose and some stage plays for his students and left behind a large amount of tanka and free verse, most of which was discovered and published posthumously. His poetry, which has been translated into numerous languages, has a considerable following to this day. A number of his children's works have been made into animated movies, anime, in Japan.
He showed little interest in romantic love or sex, both in his private life and in his literary work.Pulvers 2007, pp. 9–28. "Kenji, it must be remembered, was a man who displayed no particular interest in romantic love or sex." Keene, though, states "he sometimes wandered all night in the wood in order in order to subdue the waves of sexual desire [he sensed within himself]" (Keene 1999, p. 288). Kenji's close friend wrote that he died a virgin.Keene 1999, p. 288, citing (note 193, p. 379) Seki 1971, pp. 130–132.
Illness and death Kenji fell ill in summer 1928, and by the end of that year this had developed into acute pneumonia.Keene 1999, pp. 289–290. He once wept on learning that he had been tricked into eating carp liver.Keene 1999, p. 290, citing (note 198, p. 379) Kushida, "Shijin to Shōzō" in Miyazawa Kenji 1968, p. 393. He struggled with pleurisy for many years and was sometimes incapacitated for months at a time. His health improved nonetheless sufficiently for him to take on consultancy work with a rock-crushing company in 1931. The respite was brief; by September of that year, on a visit to Tokyo, he caught pneumonia and had to return to his hometown. In the autumn of 1933, his health seemed to have improved enough for him to watch a local Shinto procession from his doorway; a group of local farmers approached him and engaged him in conversation about fertilizer for about an hour.Keene 1999, p. 291. He died the following day, having been exhausted by the length of his discussion with the farmers. On his deathbed he asked his father to print 1,000 copies of the Lotus Sutra for distribution. His family initially had him buried in the family Pure Land temple Anjōji, but when they converted to Nichiren Buddhism in 1951, he was moved to the Nichiren temple Shinshōji. After his death, he became known in his district as Kenji-bosatsu (賢治菩薩).
Miyazawa left his manuscripts to his younger brother Seiroku, who kept them through the Pacific War and eventually had them published.
Early writings Kenji started writing poetry as a schoolboy, and composed over a thousand tanka beginning at roughly age 15, in January 1911, a few weeks after the publication of Takuboku's "A Handful of Sand".Ueda Makoto p.217. He favoured this form until the age of 24. Keene said of these early poems that they "were crude in execution, [but] they already prefigure the fantasy and intensity of emotion that would later be revealed in his mature work".