SATŌ Haruo 1892–1964

PERSONAL: Born 1892, in Wakayama prefecture, Japan; died 1964, in Tokyo, Japan. Education: Studied French literature at Keio University.

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Den'en no yuutsu (title means "Gloom in the Country"; contains Den'en no yuutsu, Okinu to sono kyodai, Tokai no yuutsu), Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1919, reprinted, Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1969, translation by Francis B. Tenny published as The Sick Rose, 1993.

Okinu to sono kyodai (title means "Okinu and Her Brothers"), Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1919, English translation published in The Sick Rose, 1993.

Tokai no yuutsu: shosetsu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1923, English translation published in The Sick Rose, 1993.

The Sick Rose: A Pastoral Elegy, introduction by J. Thomas Rimer, University of Hawaii Press (Honolulu, HI), 1993.

Beautiful Town: Stories and Essays, translated by Francis B. Tenny, University of Hawaii Press (Honolulu, HI), 1996.

IN JAPANESE

Supeinu inu no ie (fiction; title means "The House of the Spanish Dog"), [Japan], 1917.

Yameru sobi: tenpenshu (short stories) Tan'yusha (Tokyo, Japan), 1918, reprinted, Nihon Kindai Bungakkan (Tokyo, Japan), 1974.

Junjo shishu (title means "Sentimental Poems"), Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1921.

Gento: tanpenshu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1921.

Amoi saiho satsu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1922.

Nanpo kiko: Amoi saiho satsu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1922, reprinted, Shun'yodo (Tokyo, Japan), 1984.

Gyokusanka: shina tanpenshu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1923.

Taikutsu tokuhon, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1926.

Inago no dairyoko, 1926, reprinted, Horupu Shuppan (Tokyo, Japan), 1971.

(With Satōmi Ton) Satōmi Ton shu, Satō Haruo shu, Kaizosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1927.

(With Koji Uno) Gendai chohen shosetsu zenshu 20, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1928.

Enseika no tanjobi: hoka rokuhen, Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1928.

Shina dowashu, Arusu (Tokyo, Japan), 1929.

Heiyoden, Kaizosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1929.

(With Naoya Shiga) Meiji Taisho bungaku zenshu, Shun'yodo (Tokyo, Japan), 1929.

Koseiki (title means "Rebirth"), Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1930.

Shinsen Satō Haruo shu, Kaizosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1930.

Satō Haruo zenshu, Kaizosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1931, reprinted, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1966.

Musashino otome, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1932.

Chokodo ishu: Akutagawa Ryunosuke icho = Sois belle, sois triste, Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1933, reprinted, Nihon Kindai Bungakkan, 1977.

Kandan hannichi, Hakusuisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1934.

(With Lafacadio Hearn) Sento tohanki: shoki bunshu: hoka shi-hen, Hakusuisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1934.

(With others) Shoki Bunshu, Hakusuisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1934.

Sento tohanki: hoka yonpen shoki bunshu, Hakusuisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1934.

(With others) Ro Jin senshu, Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1935.

Nagai kafu kkokuhon, Mikasashobo, 1936.

Kikusuitan: Honen Shonin betsuden, Daito Shuppansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1936.

Shoenka, Nodashobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1936.

Haruo shi sho, Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1936.

Soseki no dokusho to kansho, Koyama Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1936.

Sanjin guki, Daiichi Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1936.

(With others) Tsurezuregusa, Hibonkaku (Tokyo, Japan), 1937.

Shinwai gabo noryoki, Nodashobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1937.

Totenko, Chuo Koronsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1938.

(With others) Fusei rokki: ukiyo no saga, Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1938.

Uchide no kozuchi, Shomotsutenbosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1939.

Shina bungaku sen, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1940.

Shinsatsuki henku ni okeru Chugoku Kyosanto no nogyo seisaku, Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki Kaisha Chosabu, 1941.

Waga imoto no ki, Sakuraishoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1941.

Shohai horeki shu, Kisanbo (Tokyo, Japan), 1942.

Shina to chuo ajia, Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1942.

Kokyuden, Okukawashobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1942.

Nihon shoka, Sakurai Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1942.

Kankyo, Jitsugyo no Nihonsha, 1943.

Yamada Nagamasa, Seiki Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1943.

Yosai zakki, Chitose Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1943.

Zuien shoki, Bunrindo Sogyobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1943.

(With Koji Uno) Kindai Nihon bungaku kenkyu, Shogakkan (Tokyo, Japan), 1943.

(With Koji Uno) Meiji bungaku sakka ron, Shogakkan (Tokyo, Japan), 1943.

(With Koji Uno) Taisho bungaku sakka ron, Shogakkan (Tokyo, Japan), 1943.

(With Koji Uno) Showa bungaku sakka ron, Shogakkan (Tokyo, Japan), 1943.

Hoko shishu, Chitose Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1944.

Saku no kusabue: shishu, Tokyoshuppan (Tokyo, Japan), 1946.

Shinshu no ki, Yotokusha, 1946.

Nihon bungei no michi, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1946.

Hana sobi: kindai jojo shisen, Tenmeisha (Yokosuka, Japan), 1947.

(With Kenko Yoshida) Gendaigoyaku Tsurezuregusa, Hibonkaku (Tokyo, Japan), 1947.

Kafu zakkan, Kunitachi Shoin (Tokyo, Japan), 1947, reprinted, Nihon Tosho Senta, 1989.

Hyakkason monogatari, Shonan Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1948.

Wakarezaru tsuma ni atauru sho, Tokyoshuppan (Tokyo, Japan), 1948.

Shizen no dowa, Tancho Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1948.

Bungei tazan no ishi, Kogakusha (Tokyo, Japan), 1948.

Gyokuteki fu: shinashisen, Tokyoshuppan (Tokyo, Japan), 1948.

Shinpen Satō Haruo shishu, Chiheisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1948.

(Translator) Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio, Kamakurabunko (Tokyo, Japan), 1948.

Kono mittsu no mono, Kogakusha (Tokyo, Japan), 1949.

Furyu eiroshu, Mainichishinbunsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1949.

Shimazaki Toson shi-dokuhon, Tozai Shuppansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1949.

Satō Haruo sakuhinshu, Kogakusha (Tokyo, Japan), 1949.

(With others) Porutogaru-bumi, Jinbun Shoin (Kyoto, Japan), 1949.

Yume jo kizuku hitobito, Iwaya Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1950.

Shimon, koka 14-hen (short stories), Kogakusha (Tokyo, Japan), 1950.

Kindai nihon bungaku no tenbo (title means "Horizons of Modern Literature"), Dai Nihon Yubenkai Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1950.

(With Muryu Fu) Heiyoden, three volumes, Seikishobo, 1951.

Okinu to sono kyodai: shosetsushu, Sogensha (Tokyo, Japan), 1952.

Satō haruo zen shishu, Sogensha (Tokyo, Japan), 1952.

Kindai shinsen tan, Kengensha, 1952.

Shin'yaku suikoden, nine volumes, Chuokoronsha, 1952–53.

Yosano akiko kashu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1953.

(With Seiichi Yoshida) Kindai nihon jojo shishu, Chuokoronsha, 1953.

Kijo chinjo hojo, Chikumashobo, 1954.

Satō Haruo shu, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1954.

Waga shosetsu sakuho: kinsaku jissen sosakushu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1954.

(With others) Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Kikuchi Kan, Satō Haruo shu, Tokyo Sogensha (Tokyo, Japan), 1955.

Akiko mandara, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1955, reprinted, Kalihan Shohan (Tokyo, Japan), 1970.

Tanpenshu 1, Kawadeshobo, 1956.

Jisen Satō Haruo zenshu, Kawade Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1956.

Sobae, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1956.

Shosetsu Takamura Kotaro, Gendaisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1956.

(With Misuyuki Ishida) Higeki o kien to shite: Kan Muryojukyo, Hozokan (Tokyo, Japan), 1957.

Shosetsu chiekosho, Jitsugyononihonsha, 1957.

Shakado monogatari, Heibonsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1957.

(With others) Kegawa o kita vinasu, Dainihon'yubenkaikodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1957.

Gendai yakushishu, Chikuma Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1957.

Kanchoro fukin, Mikasa Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1957.

(With others) Shin Juhasshirayaku monogatari, Kawada Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1958.

(With others) Gendai kiko bungaku zenshu, Shudosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1958.

Nihon no tanjo, Kawade Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1958.

Waga Ryunosuke zo, Yushindo (Tokyo, Japan), 1959, reprinted, Nihontoshosenta, 1984.

Bushi no bokko, Kawade Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1959.

Kizoku no eiga, Kawade Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1959.

Chugoku no shinwa densetsu, Kawade Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1959.

(With others) Gendai kiko bungaku zenshu, Shudosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1959.

Nihon no fukei, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1959.

Midaregami o yomu, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1959.

(With Shiro Murano) Gendai shijin zenshu, Kadokawa Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1960.

Shi no hon, Yushindo (Tokyo, Japan), 1960.

Gendai nihon meishishu taisie 4, Tokyosogensha (Tokyo, Japan), 1960.

Shostsu Nagai Kafu den, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1960.

Gokuraku kara kita, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1961.

Gendai yakushishu, Chikumashobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1961.

Sozen no hana: gusha no rakuen kaidai, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1961.

Kosenjo, Jinbutsu Oraisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1962.

Ai no sekai, Asahi Shinbunsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1962.

Shiteki danpen kensei no onidomo, Jinbutsu Oraisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1962.

Kihan kokugo tokuhon, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1963, reprinted, 1989.

Bijo Nihonshi, Kawade Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1963.

Shibun hanseiki, Yomiurishinbunsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1963.

Shosetsu Chieko sho, Kadokawa Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1963.

Haruo shisho, Kalihan (Tokyo, Japan), 1963.

(With Kinji Shimada) Satō Haruo bungei ronshu, Soshisha, 1963.

Tokai no yuutsu, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1964.

Waga Hokkaido: Hokkaido kaido hyakunen kinen shuppan, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1964.

Ueda Akinari, Togensha (Tokyo, Japan), 1964, reprinted, Kuresu Shuppan (Tokyo, Japan), 2003.

Tama o daite naku, Kawadeshoboshinsha, 1964.

Hikari no obi, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1964.

Shibun shiki, Sekkasha (Tokyo, Japan), 1964.

Shibun hanseiki, Yomiuri Shimbunsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1965.

Karamo no innen, Keiso Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1965.

Chohen shosetsu, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1966.

Shiron, kiko, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1966.

Chohen shosetsu, gikyoku, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1967.

(With others) Satō Haruo, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Inoue Yaushi, Chikuma Shobo, 1967.

Tanpen shosetsu, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1967.

Satō Haruo, Kubota Mantaro, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1967.

Zen shishu, tanka, haiku, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1967.

Satō Haruo, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1967, reprinted, Chikkuma Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1991.

Satō Haruo muro saisei, Bungeishunju, 1968.

Tanpen shosetsu: Dai 3, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1968.

Tanpen shosetsu, hon'yaku, gendaigo yaku, dowa, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1968.

Hyoron zuihitsu, two volumes, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1969–1970.

(With Junzaburo Nishiwaki) Satō Haruo zen shishu, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1970.

Shosetsu cheiko sho, Kadokawa Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1970, reprinted, 1992.

Satō Haruo shishu, Hakuosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1970.

(With Junichiro Tanizaki) Satō Haruo, Chuo Koronsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1972.

Satō Haruo mur saiseishu, Kadokawa shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1973.

(With others) Makura no shoshi, Kawade Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1976.

(With Tadashi Morishita) Hanzaisha no shogu, Yuhikaku (Tokyo, Japan), 1976.

Akita Ujaku, Mushanokoji Saneatsu, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Satō Haruo, Yoshida Genjiro shu, Horupushuppan (Tokyo, Japan), 1977.

(With Muroo Sasei) Muroo Sasei, Satō Haruo shu, Shueisha (Tokyo, Japan), 1978.

(With Yasunori Taninaka) Masaokun no mita yume, Horupushuppan (Tokyo, Japan), 1978.

Kanmuryojukyo, Daito Shuppansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1978.

Horiguchi Daigaku shishu/Satō Haruo hen, Kadokawa Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1979.

Taikutsu tokuhon, Fuzanbo (Tokyo, Japan), 1978.

Bijo Nihon shi, Seidosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1979.

Shina dowashu, Meichofukyukai, 1981.

Gokuraku ojo: Amidabutsu o mitatematsuru ho, Kokusai Johosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1982.

Kemono, Kawade Shobo Shinsha (Tokyo, Japan), 1983.

Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki Kaisha daiyounji junenshi, Ryukei Shosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1986.

Noka Yajin jushishionshi sho, Munaguruma-zoshinsha (Fujisawa, Japan), 1990.

Zuroku Satō Haruo: bokyo no shijin, idai na bungakusha, Satō Haruo Kinenkan, 1990.

Hi no hyo: Satō Haruo den Kankokai cho, Koyo Shuppansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1993.

Akiko mandara, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1993.

Satō Haruo, Nihon Tosho Senta, 1994.

Shajinshu: Horutogaru-bumi, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1994.

Wanpaku jidai, Gyosei (Tokyo, Japan), 1994.

Teihon Satō Haruo zenshu, Rinsen Shoten (Kyoto, Japan), 1998.

Zuoteng Chunfu: zhi min di zhi lü, Caogenchubanshi yeyouxiangongsi (Taipei, Taiwan), 2002.

Contributor to Yonen jidai, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1991, and Utsukushiki machi: Supeinken no ie, Iwanami Shoten, 1992.

SIDELIGHTS: Satō Haruo grew up in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Japan, where he nurtured a love of French literature. As early as age twelve, he told the admissions examiners at his middle school that he intended to make writing his career. Following the publication of short stories and other prose pieces, at age thirty Satō made his debut in 1921 as a lyric poet with Junjo shishu. His subsequent career spanned decades and embraced not only poetry but also fiction, translations, essays, and memoirs.

Assessing Satō's poetry, Nobuko Miyama Ochner wrote in Monumenta Nipponica that the writer's earliest efforts are typical of the thirty-one-syllable tanka style, but that by his university years Satō was encouraged to make the transition to the shi form, which "proved to be a more suitable vehicle to express the complex feelings of a sensitive modern man than [did] tanka." "To be sure, his early poems have purely lyrical or romantic moments," Ochner noted. "But even in [Junjo shishu] there are poems containing irony or self-derision, despite the fact that Satō describes his own poetry as basically lyrical, taking its subject matter from daily life."

One of those life incidents chronicled in Junjo shishu is the failed romantic triangle that developed between Satō, his friend writer Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, and Tanizaki's wife, Chiyo. The couple was open about the problems in their marriage to the point where Satō and Tanizaki essentially agreed that, following a divorce, Satō would marry Chiyo, a woman whom he had long admired. But "at the last moment, in what is called the Odawara incident, Tanizaki changed his mind and decided to try rebuilding his marriage with Chiyo," Ochner noted. "Satō was angered by what he considered a breach of promise. Thus he and Chiyo parted unwillingly, and the friendship between the two men was broken for six years." During this interval, Ochner said that Satō "memorialized his suffering … by publishing stories and poems, particularly the poems collected in Junjo shishu."

Satō's prose output includes Supeinu inu no ie, which, according to Stephen Dodd in Currents in Japanese Culture, "shows how far Western features had become part of his literary creativity." The story follows a traveler who comes across a Western-style home with a Spanish courtyard in the Japanese woods. Entering the house without permission, the traveler is startled by a large black dog. Fearing the dog will attack, the man leaves, but as he looks back through the window into the home, the black dog has turned into a man in a black suit.

"These Spanish touches and the gloomy atmosphere of a German fairy tale, all in a Japanese location, suggest that Satō's perception of his world depended on an eclectic mixture of influences drawn freely from his readings of Western literature, as much as any from 'traditional' Japan," Dodd remarked. "Moreover, when it first appeared in a magazine, the fact that Satō described the pieces as a 'short story for people who like to feel as if they are dreaming' indicates that this patching together of diverse elements had created a sense of unreality in the Japanese psyche." As Dodd concluded, "In any case, although the story's mysterious quality hints that this is a world in which the writer does not feel entirely comfortable … the Western elements are the familiar features he most readily draws on to give literary shape to that unease."

Among Satō's other fictional works, Den'en no yuutsu stands out for critic J. Thomas Rimer as an icon of the modernist Tashu era of Japanese literature. To Rimer, writing in his introduction to Satō's translated collection The Sick Rose: A Pastoral Elegy, the prose in this work "glows with a special light refracted from poems of Blake and Goethe with which the author finds a special closeness. Reading the text of [Den'en no yuutsu, in its English translation] seventy-odd years after its composition, the effect on the reader seems virtually seamless; the author inhabits the whole world of literature, East and West alike, and finds himself drawn, first in one direction and then in another, more by his modern sensibility than through his cultural status as a Japanese." Like Supeinu inu no ie, which incorporates European fairy-tale elements into the story, Den'en no yuutsu, published four years later, also takes place in a mysterious house, "but Satō's new and increasingly relentless articulation of the interior life continued." Rimer also noted that the latter work showed its author as "a master craftsman" in creating text that displays "a counterpoint of emotionally fraught moments, juxtaposed with poetic symbolism worthy of Basho and other haiku masters." In fact, Den'en no yuutsu is, in Rimer's opinion, "closer to poetry than to ordinary prose."

Moving beyond the 1920s, Satō continued to "reveal his love of poetry and his bent for composing lyrical prose," said Rimer. A growing interest in the classical literature of both China and Japan, "allowed him to produce in the 1930s and after a number of striking works" that chronicles Asian historical figures.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Heinrich, Amy Vladeck, editor, Currents in Japanese Culture, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Haruo, Satō, The Sick Rose: A Pastoral Elegy, translated by Francis B. Tenny, introduction by J. Thomas Rimer, University of Hawaii Press (Honolulu, HI), 1993.

PERIODICALS

Monumenta Nipponica, fall, 1989, Nobuko Miiyama Ochner, "Secrets in My Heart: The Poetry of Satō Haruo," pp. 261-282.

Publishers Weekly, December 6, 1993, review of The Sick Rose, p. 69.