| Seichō Matsumoto | |
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Entrance to Seichō Matsumoto memorial museum |
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| Born | Kiyoharu Matsumoto December 21, 1909 Hiroshima, Japan |
| Died | 4 August 1992 (aged 82) Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital (ja:東京女子医科大学病院) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Genres | Detective fiction Non-fiction Ancient history |
Seichō Matsumoto (松本 清張 Matsumoto Seichō, December 21, 1909 – August 4, 1992) was a Japanese writer.
Seichō's works created new tradition of Japanese mystery / detective fiction. Dispensing with formulaic plot devices such as puzzles, Seichō incorporated elements of human psychology and ordinary life. In particular, his works often reflect a wider social context and postwar nihilism that expanded the scope and further darkened the atmosphere of the genre. His exposé of corruption among police officials as well as criminals was a new addition to the field. The subject of investigation was not just the crime but also the society in which the crime was committed.
The self-educated Seichō did not see his first book in print until he was in his forties. He was a prolific author, he wrote until his death in 1992, producing in four decades more than 450 works. Seichō's mystery and detective fiction solidified his reputation as a writer at home and abroad. He wrote historical novels and nonfiction in addition to mystery/detective fiction.
He awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 1952 and the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1970, as well as the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1957. He chaired the president of Mystery Writers of Japan from 1963 to 1971.
Credited with popularizing the genre among readers in his country, Seichō became his nation's best-selling and highest earning author in the 1960s. His most acclaimed detective novels, including Ten to sen (1958; Points and Lines, 1970) and Suna no utsuwa (1961; Inspector Imanishi Investigates, 1989), have been translated into a number of languages, including English.
He collaborated with film director Yoshitaro Nomura on adaptations of eight of his novels to film, including Castle of Sand, which is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Japanese cinema.[1]
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Seichō was born in the city of Kokura, now Kokura Kita ward, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka prefecture, on the island of Kyushu in Japan in 1909. His real name was Kiyoharu Matsumoto, he later adopted the pen name of Seichō Matsumoto;"Seichō" is the Sino-Japanese reading of the characters of his given name. A product of humble origins, he was his parents' only child. Following his graduation from elementary school, Seichō found employment at a utility company. As an adult he designed layouts for the Asahi Shinbun in Kyushu. His work in the advertising department was interrupted by service in World War II. A medical corpsman, Seichō spent much of the war in Korea. He resumed work at Asahi Shinbun after the war, transferring to the publication's Tokyo office in 1950.
Though Seichō attended neither secondary school nor university, he was well read. As a rebellious teenager, he read banned revolutionary texts as part of a political protest. This act so enraged Seichō's father that he destroyed his son's collection of literature. Undeterred, the young Seichō sought award-winning works of fiction and studied them intently. His official foray into literature occurred in 1950 when Shukan Asahi magazine hosted a fiction contest. He submitted his short story "Saigō satsu" (Saigō's Currency) and placed third in the competition. With three generations dependent on him (he supported his parents as well as his wife and children), Seichō welcomed the prize money. His modest success and the encouragement of fellow writers fueled his efforts. Within six years he had retired from his post at the newspaper to pursue a full-time career as a writer.
Renowned for his work ethic, Seichō wrote short fiction while simultaneously producing multiple novels-at one point as many as five concurrently—in the form of magazine serials. Many of Seichō's crime stories debuted in periodicals, among them the acclaimed "Harikomi" (The Chase), in which a woman reunites with her fugitive lover while police close in on her home. As is true of much of Seichō's fiction, this psychological portrait reveals more about the characters than the crime.
For his literary accomplishments, Seichō received the Mystery Writers of Japan Prize, Naoki Prize, and the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature, all awards bestowed on writers of popular fiction. In 1952 he was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for "Aru 'Kokura-nikki' den" (The Legend of the Kokura-Diary). Considered Seichō's best story, it features a disabled but diligent protagonist who seeks entries that are missing from the diary of author and army medical physician Mori Ōgai.
A lifelong activist, Seichō voiced anti-American sentiment in some of his writings, but he was equally critical of his own society. Many of his works of fiction and nonfiction reveal corruption in Japanese system. A political radical despite (or perhaps in reaction to) growing up in a conformist society, Seichō associated with like-minded individuals. In 1968 he traveled to communist Cuba as a delegate of the World Cultural Congress and later that same year ventured to North Vietnam to meet with its president. Though he continued to write works of mystery and detective fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, at the same time the author was also interested in political topics.
Since younger days, Seichō had the keen interest in archeology and Ancient history. He made his idea public in some fictions and in many essays. Though his concern started from the ancient history of Japan, the concern has been expanded to the world soon. His interest extended to Northeast Asia, Western Regions, and Celts, etc., especially, he had the keen interest in the Zoroastrianism with Ancient Persia.
In 1977, Seichō met Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay) that visited Japan and discussed good mystery fiction. In 1987, he was invited by French mystery writers as a representative of Japanese mystery writers, and talked about his sense of mystery at Grenoble. Since then, his detective fiction has been often compared with that of Georges Simenon.
Since his death from cancer at the age of eighty-three, Seichō's popularity as a writer of mystery and detective fiction has grown internationally, and he has achieved iconic status in Japanese culture.