Yumeno Kyūsaku

Yumeno Kyūsaku (夢野 久作, 4 January 1889 – 11 March 1936) was the pen name of Sugiyama Yasumichi (杉山 泰道), early Shōwa period Japanese author, Zen priest, post office director and sub-lieutenant. The pen name roughly means "a person who always dreams". His Dharma name was Goshin-in Gin'en Taidō-koji (悟真院吟園泰道居士). He wrote detective novels and is known for his avant-gardism and his surrealistic, wildly imaginative and fantastic,[1] even bizarre narratives. His eldest son, Sugiyama Tatsumaru, was known as the Green Father of India.

Yumeno Kyūsaku
Yumeno Kyūsaku
Native name
夢野 久作
BornSugiyama Naoki (杉山 直樹)
(1889-01-04)4 January 1889
Fukuoka, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan
Died11 March 1936(1936-03-11) (aged 47)
Tokyo, Japan
Pen nameKaijaku Ranpei
Kagutsuchi Midori
Kakumi Dontarō
Unsui (雲水)
Hōen (萠円)
OccupationJournalist, detective literature writer
GenreDetective stories, science fiction, horror
Literary movementRomanticism, surrealism
RelativesSugiyama Shigemaru (father)
Sugiyama Tatsumaru (son)
Sugiyama Sanroku (third son)
In this Japanese name, the family name is Yumeno, Sugiyama.

Early life

Yumeno was born in Fukuoka city, Fukuoka prefecture as Sugiyama Naoki. His father, Sugiyama Shigemaru, was a major figure in the pre-war ultranationalist organization, the Genyōsha. After graduating from Shuyukan he attended the Literature Department at Keio University, but dropped out[1] on orders from his father, and returned home to take care of the family farm. In 1926 he decided to become a Buddhist priest, but after a couple of years in the monastery, he returned home again as Sugiyama Yasumichi. By this time, he had developed a strong interest in the traditional Japanese drama form of Noh, with its genre of ghost stories and supernatural events. He found employment as a freelance reporter for the Kyushu Nippō newspaper (which later became the Nishinippon Shimbun), while writing works of fiction on the side.

Literary career

Kyūsaku's first success was a nursery tale Shiraga Kozō (White Hair Boy, 1922), which was largely ignored by the public. It was not until his first novella, Ayakashi no Tsuzumi (The Spirit Drum, 1924) in the literary magazine Shin-Seinen that his name became known.

His subsequent works include Binzume jigoku (Hell in the Bottles, 1928), Kori no hate (End of the Ice, 1933) and his most significant novel Dogra Magra (ドグラマグラ, 1935), which is considered a precursor of modern Japanese science fiction[2] and was adapted for a 1988 movie.[3]

Dogra Magra exemplifies modern Japanese avant-garde gothic literature. In the story, the protagonist/narrator wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. He finds out that he was the subject of an experiment by a now-dead psychiatrist, and the doctors are working to bring back his memories. It is not clear whether he was a psychotic killer or the victim of a strange psychological experiment, but it is told that he killed his mother and wife and that he inherited his psychotic tendencies from an insane ancestor. This novel is strongly influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis and through Yumeno's contacts there, provides considerable historical insight into the development of the study of psychoanalysis at Kyushu Imperial University.[2]

Kyūsaku died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1936 while talking with a visitor at home.

Works in translation

English translation

Short stories

  • "Love After Death" (original title: Shigo no Koi) (Modanizumu: Modernist Fiction from Japan, 1913-1938, University of Hawaii Press, 2008)
  • "Hell in a Bottle" (original title: Binzume Jigoku) (Three-Dimensional Reading: Stories of Time and Space in Japanese Modernist Fiction, 1911-1932, University of Hawaii Press, 2013)
  • "Hell in Bottles" (original title: Binzume Jigoku) (The Nashville Review, Volume 25, Vanderbilt University, 2018)
  • "Building" (original title: Birudingu) (The Literary Review, Volume 60 No 2: Physics, Farleigh Dickinson University, 2017)

Novel

  • "The Spirit Drum" (original title: Ayakashi no Tsuzumi) (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2019, translated by J.D. Wisgo)

Essay

French translation

Novel

  • Dogra Magra Philippe Picquier (2003). ISBN 2-87730-645-3

Spanish translation

Short stories

  • El infierno de las chicas [The hell of the girls] (in Spanish), Satori, 2014, ISBN 978-84-941920-7-4.
gollark: Aren't you in Turkey?
gollark: Slightly terser if more accursed config?
gollark: Not-invented-here syndrome?
gollark: So why dale?
gollark: it could be at least 2 elegant.

References
  1. "Kyusaku Yumeno". Authors. JP: JLPP. Archived from the original on December 12, 2007. Retrieved 2009-03-11.
  2. Nakamura, Miri (2007). "Horror and machines in prewar Japan". In Bolton, Chris; Csicsery-Ronay jr. Istvan; Tatsumi, Takayuki (eds.). Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams. Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 3–26. ISBN 0-8166-4974-X.
  3. "Dogura magura (1988)". Retrieved 2009-03-11.

Further reading
  • Yumeno, Kyūsaku. Nippon Tantei Shosetsu Zenshu (The Great Detective Stories of Japan) Vol. 4. Tokyo SogenSha (1984). ISBN 4-488-40004-3 (in Japanese)
  • Bush, Laurence. Asian Horror Encyclopedia: Asian Horror Culture in Literature, Manga, and Folklore. Writer's Club Press (2001). ISBN 0-595-20181-4 (in English)
  • Napier, Susan J. The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature. Routledge (1995). ISBN 0-415-12458-1 (in English)
  • Clerici, Nathen. Dreams from Below: Yumeno Kyūsaku and Subculture Literature in Japan (2013)
  • Clerici, Nathen (March 2019). "Yumeno Kyūsaku and the Spirit of the Local". Japanese Studies: 1–20. doi:10.1080/10371397.2019.1576295.
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