Yumeno Kyūsaku
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| Kyūsaku Yumeno | |
 Yumeno Kyūsaku |
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| Born: | 4 January 1889 Fukuoka, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan |
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| Died: | 11 March 1936 Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Genres: | detective stories, science fiction, horror |
| Literary movement: | surrealism |
Kyūsaku Yumeno (夢野 久作 Yumeno Kyūsaku?); (4 January 1889 - 11 March 1936) was the pen name of an author in Showa period Japan. His real name was Sugiyama Taido. He is known for his widely imaginative surrealistic detective novels.
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[edit] Early life
Kyūsaku was born in Fukuoka city, Fukuoka prefecture. His father, Sugiyama Shigemaru, was a major figure in the pre-war ultranationalist organization, the Genyōsha. He attended the Literature Department at Keio University, but dropped out on orders from his father, and returned home to take care of the family farm. In 1926 he decided to become a Buddhist priest, but after a couple of years in the monastery, he returned home again. By this time, he had developed a strong interest in the traditional Japanese drama form of Noh, with its genre of ghost stories and supernatural events. He found employment as a freelance reporter for the Kyushu Nippo newspaper (which later became the Nishinippon Shimbun ), while writing works of fiction on the side.
[edit] Literary career
Kyusaku’s first success was a horror story Shiragami Kozo (White Hair Acolyte, 1922), which was largely ignored by the public. It was not until the serialization of his second novel, Ayakashi no Tsutsumi (Suspicious Package, 1924) in the literary magazine Shin-Shonen that his name became known.
His subsequent works include Binzume jigoku (Bottled Hell, 1928), Kori no hate (End of the Ice, 1935) and his most significant novel Dogura Magura (Sorceries, 1935), which was adapted into a film.
Dogura Magura exemplifies modern Japanese avant-garde gothic literature, with a story closely paralleling the most avant-garde works of modern manga. In the story, the protagonist/narrator wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. He finds out that he was the subject of an experiment by a now-dead psychiatrist, and the doctors are working to bring back his memories. It is not clear whether he was a psychotic killer or the victim of strange psychological experiment, but he is told that he killed his mother and wife and that he inherited his psychotic tendencies from an insane ancestor. Kyūsaku used a very large amount of furigana in his writing in an effort to help his readers with the complex terms described.
Kyūsaku died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1936 while signing autographs at an event hosted by his publisher to celebrate the publication of Dogura Magura after ten years of effort from his first drafts.
[edit] References and further reading
- Bush, Laurence. Asian Horror Encyclopedia: Asian Horror Culture in Literature, Manga, and Folklore. Writer's Club Press (2001). ISBN-10: 0595201814
- Napier, Susan J. The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature. Routledge (1995). ISBN-10: 0415124581
- Yumeno, Kyusaku. Dogura Magura. Philippe Picquier (2003). ISBN-10: 2877306453
