Nobuo Kojima

Summary

Nobuo Kojima (小島 信夫, Kojima Nobuo, February 28, 1915 – October 26, 2006) was a Japanese writer prominent in the postwar era. He is most readily associated with other writers of his generation, such as Shōtarō Yasuoka, who describe the effects of Japan's defeat in World War II on the country's psyche.

A picture of Nobuo Kojima

From an early age, Kojima read a wide variety of literature, both Japanese and Western, and such writers as Nikolai Gogol, Franz Kafka, and Fyodor Dostoevsky had a strong influence on his work. In addition to his fiction, he had a long career as a professor of English literature at Meiji University in Tokyo, publishing criticism and making translations of many major American writers, including Dorothy Parker, Irwin Shaw, and Bernard Malamud.[1]

Selected works edit

Year Japanese Title English Title
1948 汽車の中
Kisha no Naka
In a Train
1952 小銃
Shoujuu
The Rifle
1954 アメリカン・スクール
Amerikan Sukuuru
The American School
1965 抱擁家族
Houyou Kazoku
Embracing Family

Awards edit

Further reading edit

"The Rifle," translated by Lawrence Rogers in The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, Theodore W. Gossen, (ed.), Oxford, 1997. ISBN 0-19-283304-9

Notes edit

  1. ^ Lawall, Sarah, and Maynard Mack, eds. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. F. New York: Norton, 2002.

External links edit

  • http://homepage1.nifty.com/naokiaward/akutagawa/jugun/jugun32KN.htm
  • http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~n-kojima/page/3rd.html
  • Nobuo Kojima at J'Lit Books from Japan (in English)
  • Synopsis of Embracing Family at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) (in English)