YOSHIYUKI JUN’NOSUKE

(1924–1994)

   Yoshiyuki Jun’nosuke was a novelist and short-story writer from Okayama Prefecture. He attended Tokyo University in 1945 but was displaced that same year due to the fire bombings. Before completing his degree, he was persuaded by his boss at an editing company to drop out of school. Yoshiyuki had already been exposed to some literary journals in college, and he continued to contribute to them while editing. His novel Shu’u (1954; tr. Sudden Shower, 1972) won the Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize, and, unemployed after becoming infected with tuberculosis and having no other money with which to subsist, he decided to become a professional writer. In 1963, he published the popular novel Suna no ue no shokubutsu gun (Vegetable Garden in the Sand) and won the Tanizaki Jun’ichiro Prize for Anshitsu (1970; tr. The Dark Room, 1975). His novel Yugure made (Until Evening, 1978) took 13 years to write, but won the Noma Prize. Yoshiyuki is considered to be a member of the Third Generation of postwar writers.