Fukazawa Shichiro

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Fukazawa Shichiro, 深沢七郎 (January 29, 1914 - August 18, 1987) was a noted Japanese author and musician.

Fukazawa was born in Isawa, Yamanashi. His first novel, The Ballad of Narayama (Narayama bushiko, 楢山節考), won the Chūōkōron Prize, and was twice made into a movie script: first by Kinoshita Keisuke (1958) and again by Imamura Shōhei (1983) when it won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or.

In 1960, Chuo Koron published his satire Furyu mutan (“The Story of a Dream of Courtly Elegance"). In it the narrator dreams that leftists take over the imperial palace and behead Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko before an enthusiastic crowd. This story provoked fury in the Imperial Household Agency and among Japanese ultra-nationalists. On February 1, 1961, a seventeen-year-old rightist broke into the home of Chuo's president, Shimanaka Hoji, killed a maid with a sword, and severely wounded Shimanaka's wife in response to the story. Fukazawa went into hiding and was little seen in public afterwards.