FUTABATEI SHIMEI (1874)

Pseudonym of TATSUNOSUKE HASEGAWA.

Novelist and translator of Russian literature; his Ukigumo (1887-89; translated with a study of his life and career by M. Ryan as Japan´s First Modern Novel: Ukigumo of Futabatei Shimei, 1967) brought modern Realism to the Japanese novel.

Although he wrote three novels and translated many stories, he is best known for Ukigumo and for his translations of stories by Ivan Turgenev, Aibiki (The Rendezvous) and Meguriai (Chance Meetings) both published in 1888. In these works Futabatei used a style called gembun itchi or unification of spoken and written language, one of the first attempts to replace classical literary language and syntax with the modern colloquial idiom.

Born to an aristocratic warrior or samurai family. Futabatei studied Russian at the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages (1881-86) where he became interested particularly in Goncharov, Dostoyevski, Turgenev and Belinsky.

He began his literary career soon after leaving school with the help of the critic, novelist and translator Tsubouchi Shoyo.

Ukigumo, a story in which an ineffectual idealist loses out in the rude world of rapidly modernizing late 19th-century Japan and his translations of fiction were well received; but his translations of literary criticism went virtually unnoticed. Futabatei was displeased with his novel and in need of money, so in 1889 he joined the staff of the government gazette Kampo where he remained until 1897.

He did not write another novel for nearly 10 years.

From 1898 to 1902 he taught Russian and worked for government agencies, later going to Harbin and Peking. After returning to Japan in 1903 he resumed translating fiction professionally and inn 1904 became the Tokyo correspondent for the Osaka Asahi newspaper.

Between 1896 and 1909 his output included translations of stories by Turgenev, Gogol, Tolstoy and Gorky; articles on Esperanto, literary criticism and social conditions; and two novels Sono Omokage (1906; An adopted Husband) and Heibon (1907; Mediocrity).

In 1908 Futabatei travelled to Russia as a correspondent for the Asahi but fell ill and died en route from Russia to Japan.