午夜剧场

The French literature scholar who was a defendant in the Sade trial, the editor-in-chief of the high-end eroticism magazine "Blood and Roses," and the novelist of "The Travels of Prince Takaoka," which has now been adapted into a manga—Tatsuhiko Shibusawa is likely known to the public through these roles. This book is a 1,000-page biography that describes the life of this uniquely featured man of letters in chronological order from birth to death.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa was born in Tokyo in 1928 as the eldest son of a family distantly related to Eiichi Shibusawa. His life, which began with being burned out of his home during the war, spent the post-war years in Kamakura, and ended in 1987 at the age of 59, is entirely contained within the Showa era.

During the political seasons of the 1960s, Shibusawa was often categorized with images such as the "High Priest of Heresy and Darkness," but he was a true free spirit who never held a university position and lived solely by his pen. The trajectory of his life is as light as the wind.

Although he had lively interactions with many writers, artists, and stage performers, including Yukio Mishima and the Ankoku Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, Shibusawa himself was not the type to act like a boss. His works and his open, cheerful personality became an innocent magnetic field, naturally drawing many people to his salon in Kamakura.

Editors were no exception. I myself was the last editor to have the privilege of personal contact with Shibusawa in his final years, but in the earliest days, there were figures like Kyoji Ishii, the founder of Gendai Shishosha, and Jiro Ono, who started Shobunsha. People like literary critic Masashi Miura, poet Takashi Hiraide, and anthologist Masao Higashi were also once important members of the editors assigned to Shibusawa.

The tradition of young talents being drawn into Shibusawa's mysterious magnetic field has not ceased even now, 30 years after his death. Leading novelists of a generation who did not know Shibusawa during his lifetime, such as Tetsushi Suwa, Keiichiro Hirano, and Mariko Asabuki, do not hide their great respect for him.

Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that Reiji Ando, a literary critic highly active in research on Shinobu Orikuchi and others, was once the editor in charge of Shibusawa's complete translated works. Chihiro Kaneko, who handled the important memoirs of Shibusawa's wife, Ryoko, a few years ago and has now served as the expert midwife for this first biography of Shibusawa, is the youngest and most blessed person in this happy lineage of Shibusawa editors.

Junichi Isozaki

Hakusuisha

520 pages, 4,000 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.