Kazumi Takahashi

For the baseball player, see Kazumi Takahashi (baseball).

Kazumi Takahashi
Kazumi Takahashi
Born	31 August 1931 Naniwa-ku, Osaka Japan
Died	May 3, 1971(1971-05-03) (aged 39) Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Writer, University professor
Genre	novelist

Kazumi Takahashi (高橋 和巳, Takahashi Kazumi, 31 August 1931—3 May 1971) was a Japanese novelist and scholar of Chinese literature in Shōwa period Japan. His wife was fellow writer Takako Takahashi.

Biography

Takahashi was born in Naniwa-ku, Osaka, and was a graduate of Kyoto University. While still a student, he contributed to the Gendai Bungaku literary magazine. He was encouraged to study the Chinese language and Chinese history by fellow writer Eiji Yoshikawa. He became a professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in 1959. During the widespread violent student protest movements in the 1960s against the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, Takahashi was an outspoken supporter of the radical student movement. He moved to Meiji University briefly in 1966 before returning to Kyoto University in 1967.

His novel, Hi no utsuwa (“Vessel of Sorrow”, 1962), depicts the fall of a university dean from respectability due to his self-centered love affairs. Other works include Yuutsu naru Toha (“A Melancholy Faction”, 1965) and Jashumon (“Heretical Faith”, 1965–66).

Takahashi died of colon cancer at the young age of 39. His grave is at the Fuji Reien Cemetery in Shizuoka Prefecture.

References

• Miller, Scott J. The A to Z of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater. Rowman & Littlefield (2010) ISBN 1461731887
• Takahashi, Takako. Takahashi Kazumi to iu hito: Nijugonen no nochi ni. Kawade Shobo Shinsha (1997). ISBN 4-309-01123-3 (Japanese)