author
Hakuchō Masamune
1879–1962
A sharp-eyed voice of Japanese naturalism, he wrote fiction and criticism with a skeptical, unsentimental view of society. His work helped shape modern Japanese literature in the late Meiji, Taishō, and Shōwa periods.
1 Audiobook
何處へ
by Hakuchō Masamune
About the author
Born Tadao Masamune in Okayama Prefecture on March 3, 1879, he became known by the pen name Hakuchō Masamune. He studied at Tokyo Senmon Gakkō, later Waseda University, and was also influenced in his youth by Christianity.
He worked as a writer, critic, and dramatist, and is remembered as a leading figure in the Japanese Naturalist school. Reference works consistently describe his writing as notably skeptical and unsentimental, qualities that set his fiction and criticism apart from many of his contemporaries.
Masamune died in Tokyo on October 28, 1962. Today he is remembered as an important modern Japanese literary voice whose essays, criticism, and stories captured human weakness with unusual honesty.