Ikezawa Natsuki

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In this Japanese name, the family name is Ikezawa.

Ikezawa Natsuki (池澤夏樹, born July 7, 1945[1]) is a Japanese poet, novelist, essayist and translator.

He draws upon the relationship between civilization and nature in his writing, among other themes. Ikezawa translates a wide variety of writing, from contemporary Greek poetry to contemporary novels, and translates American literature to Japanese.

Contents

[edit] Life

Ikezawa was born in the summer of 1945 to Fukunaga Takehiko and Harajo Akiko (the pen name for Yamashita Sumi) in Obihiro, Hokkaido, which his parents fled in World War II. His parents were members of the literary society Matinée Poétique. In 1950, his parents divorced, and he moved to Tokyo with his mother the following year. Ikezawa did not find out about his father until his high-school years.[citation needed]

In 1963, Ikezawa enrolled at Saitama University to study physics, but dropped out in February 1968. In 1975, he moved to Greece, where he lived for 3 years. His daughter, Haruna, was born during his sojourn there.

After returning to Japan, via north Africa, Ikezawa published his first collection of poems, The Way of Salt (Shio No Michi, 塩の道) in Eureka. He was also commissioned to write essays.[specify] After writing the Japanese subtitles of the Theo Angelopoulos film, The Travelling Players (O Thiassos, 旅芸人の記録) in 1979, Angelopoulos commissioned him to continue writing subtitles for the director's films.[citation needed] He gave up writing poetry after publishing The Considering with The Longest River (Mottomo Nagai Kawa Ni Kansuru Kosatsu, もっとも長い河に関する考察, 1982) and began writing prose, beginning with the short story The Stratosphere on a Summer Morning (Natsu No Asa No Seisoken, 夏の朝の成層圏). For his short story, Still Lives (Stiru Raifu, スティル・ライフ), he received two Rookie-of-the-Year awards: the TyuoKoron Prize and the Akutagawa Prize. This story established him as a novelist, and he has since become a prolific writer.

In 1993, Ikezawa moved to Okinawa, Japan, and later to Fontainebleau, France.

[edit] Awards

Ikezawa's works have been awarded several prizes such as the Tanizaki-Junichiro Prize for The Fall of Macias Guili (Masiasu Giri No Shikkyaku, マシアス・ギリの失脚), the Mainichi Prize for A Burden of Flowers (Hana Wo Hakobu Imoto, 花を運ぶ妹), and the Yomiuri Prize for Ending with Happiness (Tanoshi Shumatsu, 楽しい終末).

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

  1. ^ ikezawa profile,english

[edit] External links

  • Impala - Official web site
  • The A Team (Words Without Borders, tr. Alfred Birnbaum, from Ikezawa Natsuki. ‘Asteroid no Kansokutai (アステロイドの観測隊)’, Switch Vol. 11, No. 3, Tokyo: Switch Publishing, 1993.7)
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