KASAI ZENZO

(1887–1928)

   Kasai Zenzo was a novelist born in Aomori Prefecture. When he was two years old his parents died and he moved to his grandparents’ home. After finishing elementary school, he became a merchant’s apprentice and took many different jobs. Wanting to write, he moved to Tokyo and audited classes at Toyo and Waseda universities and there became friends with Hirotsu Kazuo, with whom he founded the literary journal Kiseki (Miracle) in 1912. Kasai began his career publishing the story “Kanashiki chichi” (1912; tr. The Sad Father, 1986) in the first issue of Kiseki. Several lean years later he published a collection of writings titled Ko o tsurete (With Children in Tow, 1918) in the literary magazine Shincho (New Tide) that established him as an author. Most of Kasai’s works were I-Novels based on his personal experiences, containing themes of poverty, illness, loneliness, and alcoholism. Scandal over an illegitimate child took its toll, and he died at the age of 41 of tuberculosis.