Morio Kita

Morio Kita (北 杜夫, Kita Morio) was the pen name of Sokichi Saitō (斎藤 宗吉, Saitō Sōkichi, May 1, 1927 – October 24, 2011), a Japanese novelist, essayist, and psychiatrist.^[1]

Kita attended Azabu High School, Matsumoto Higher School (now part of Shinshu University) and graduated from Tohoku University's School of Medicine.^[2] He initially worked as a doctor at Keio University Hospital. Motivated by the collections of his father's poems and the books of German author Thomas Mann, he decided to become a novelist. He was the second son of poet Mokichi Saitō. Shigeta Saitō, his older brother, is also a psychiatrist. The essayist Yuka Saitō is his daughter.^[3][4]

He has suffered from manic–depressive disorder since his middle age.^[5]

Awards

• 1960: Akutagawa Prize, for the novel, In The Corner Of Night And Fog, which was about Nacht und Nebel, the campaign in Nazi Germany to catch anti-Nazi activists and members of resistance movements.

Bibliography

Incomplete - to be updated

Novels

• Ghosts (1954)
• The House of Nire. Translated by Dennis Keene. New York: Kodansha International. 1984. ISBN 0-87011-592-8.  Briefly noted in The New Yorker 60/48 (January 14, 1985): p. 117

Essays

• Papa wa Tanoshii Sōutubyō (work with Yuka Saitō, Asahi Shimbun Company, ISBN 978-4022504999)

TV

• Nescafé Gold Blend CM (1974)
• Tetsuko no Heya (1980 and May 12, 2008 with Yuka Saitō)

References