宮沢賢治
Miyazawa Kenji
1896–1933
Devoted son of the snow-bound Tohoku countryside, this poet and children's writer spun a body of work unlike anything else in modern Japanese literature. A devout Nichiren Buddhist, an agricultural science teacher, and a tireless advocate for impoverished farmers in his native Iwate, he poured those concerns into luminous fairy tales and free verse drenched in starlight, mineral, and rain. Stories like Night on the Galactic Railroad and The Restaurant of Many Orders blend cosmic wonder with quiet moral ache, while the poem Ame ni mo Makezu has become something close to national scripture. Tuberculosis silenced him young; nearly all his fame came posthumously.
