was a Japanese writer of short stories and novels.
Biography Born in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Umezaki studied at the 5th High School of Kumamoto University, later at the Tokyo Imperial University where he majored in Japanese literature. He then worked at the same Tokyo University in the Faculty of Education Sciences (kyōiku). In 1944, he was drafted as a crypto specialist for the Imperial Japanese Navy and stationed in Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyushu, an experience which he later dramatised in his famous novella Sakurajima, published in 1946. He drew on this experience in his last book, Genka (Illusions) published in 1965, the year of his death.
After the war, he worked for the Sunao (素直) magazine, led by poet and social activist Shin'ichi Eguchi (1914–1979), in which Sakurajima and some of his short stories were published. Sakurajima established Umezaki as a representative of Japanese postwar literature alongside writers like Hiroshi Noma and Rinzō Shiina. The war theme later gave way to satirical stories like Boroya no shunjū, and still later to the examination of human anxiety in modern society.
Umezaki died of liver cirrhosis in Tokyo on 19 July 1965.
Selected works Fūen (風宴), 1939. Sakurajima (桜島), 1946. Hi no hate (日の果て, End of the Sun), 1947. Kuroi hana (黒い花, Black Flower), 1950. Nise no kisetsu (Season of forgery), 1954. Boroya no shunjū (ボロ家の春秋, Shanty Life or Occurrences of an Old Dilapidated House), 1954. Suna dokei (砂時計, The Hourglass), 1955. Tsumujikaze (つむじ風), 1957. Kurui-dako (狂ひ凧), 1963. Genka (幻化, Illusions), 1965.
Awards 1954: Naoki Prize for Boroya no shunjū 1955: Shinchō Award for Suna dokei 1963: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award for Kurui-dako 1965: Mainichi Publishing Culture Award for Genka (posthumously)
Adaptations Films 1954: Hi no hate, directed by Satsuo Yamamoto 1963: Tsumujikaze, directed by Noboru Nakamura
References
Further reading Kumamoto University Prominent Alumni – Haruo Umezaki : http://ewww.kumamoto-u.ac.jp/dept/fifth/alumni/ Erik R. Lofgren: Democratizing Illnesses: Umezaki Haruo, Censorship, and Subversion. In: Comparative Literature. 52, no 2, 2000, p. 157–178 Scott J. Miller: Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater. In: Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the arts. Bd. 33, Scarecrow Press, Maryland 2009 Kyle Grossman, Pomona College: Authors and Soldiers: Reconstructing History in Postwar Japan, 2012. At Claremont.edu.