Ryotaro Shiba

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Ryotaro Shiba (司馬遼太郎 Shiba Ryōtarō), born Tei'ichi Fukuda (福田 定一 Fukuda Tei'ichi, August 7, 1923 - February 12, 1996) in Osaka, is best known for his historical novels and essays on history and culture of Japan, China, and Korea.

[edit] Career

Shiba studied Mongolian at the Osaka School of Foreign Languages (today's Osaka University of Foreign Studies) and began his career as a journalist with the Sankei Shimbun, one of Japan's major newspapers. Shiba was a prolific author who frequently wrote about the dramatic change Japan went through during the late Edo and early Meiji periods. His most monumental works include Kunitori Monogatari, Ryoma ga Yuku (see below), Moeyo Ken, and Saka no ue no Kumo, all of which have spawned dramatizations, most notably Taiga dramas aired in hour-long segments over a full year on NHK television. He also wrote numerous essays that were published in collections, one of which—Kaidō wo Yuku—is a multi-volume journal-like work covering his travels across Japan and around the world. Shiba is widely appreciated for the originality of his analyses of historical events, and many people in Japan have read at least one of his works.

[edit] Ryoma ga Yuku

One of Shiba's best known works, Ryoma ga Yuku, is a historical novel about Sakamoto Ryoma, a samurai who was instrumental in bringing about the Meiji Restoration in Japan, after which values and elements from Western culture were introduced into the country, sparking dramatic change. The late Edo period was a very confused time when the country split into two factions. Japan had banned international trade for over two hundred years and had been isolated from other countries. As a result, the people had developed a strong fear of foreigners. In the Edo period, the Japanese government, which was led by the Tokugawa family, had agreed to open the country to trade with the United States and several European countries. However, many people were against this and they started a movement called Sonnō-Jōi—"revere the emperor and eradicate the barbarians." They believed that they should stand up and fight the foreigners to protect the country from outside domination. The Tokugawa had usurped political power from the emperor, but he was still considered by many to be the sacred symbol of Japan. To protect the country, the Sonnō-Jōi faction sought to restore the emperor's political authority by overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate. Partisans of these two political institutions caused civil war-like confusion, and assassinations were frequent.

In Ryoma ga Yuku, Sakamoto Ryoma, the protagonist, starts out as a member of the Sonnō-Jōi faction but gradually realizes that people need to realize how much stronger other countries have grown during Japan's two centuries of national seclusion. Japan was almost powerless in the face of the technology and well-developed industry of the contemporary Western powers. He believed that Japan needed to adopt elements of Western culture to develop into a country that could stand equally among nations.