Takeshi Kaiko
| Kaikō Takeshi 開高 健 |
|
|---|---|
Kaikō Takeshi
|
|
| Born |
30 December 1930 Tennoji-ku, Osaka, Japan |
| Died | 9 December 1989 (aged 58) Chigasaki, Kanagawa, Japan |
| Occupation | writer, journalist |
| Genre | novels, short stories, essays |
Takeshi Kaikō (開高 健 Kaikō Takeshi?, 30 December 1930 – 9 December 1989) was a prominent post-World War II Japanese novelist, short-story writer, essayist, literary critic, and television documentary writer. He was distinguished by his knowledge, intellect, sense of humor and conversational skills, and although his style has been criticized as wordy and obtuse, he was one of the more popular Japanese writers in the late Showa period.
Kaikō was born in the Tennoji Ward of Osaka as the son of an elementary school teacher. In 1948, he enrolled in the Law Department of Osaka City University, but was often absent from class, as he had to take a variety of part-time jobs in order to pay for his tuition. While in school, rather than study law he was sidetracked by the works of Motojirō Kajii, Mitsuharu Kaneko and Atsushi Nakajima. He also translated the works of Sherwood Anderson and Louis Aragon into Japanese. He graduated in 1953 and moved to Tokyo, where he took a job with Kotobukiya (the present Suntory), where he worked in the public-relations department.
He married Yōko Maki, a poet.
Kaikō published his first work, Na no nai machi (Nameless City, 1953) in the literary magazine Kindai Bungaku soon after his move to Tokyo. It was largely ignored by critics. However, his second work, a short story titled Panniku (Panic, 1957) published in the Shin Nippon Bunkaku, caused a sensation for its unusual concept and style. It was a story about a dedicated forester in a rural prefecture of Japan, who struggles against government incompetence and corruption. Kaikō wrote the story as a satirical allegory comparing human beings to mice.
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