Yoshie Hotta

Yoshie Hotta (堀田善衛, Hotta Yoshie; July 17, 1918 – September 5, 1998)^[1] was a Japanese writer of novels, short stories, poetry and essays, noted for his political consciousness.^[2] His most acclaimed works include Hiroba no kodoku (lit. "Solitude in the Public Square", 1951), which was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, and Kage no bubun (Shadow Pieces, 1952).^[1][2] Hotta has also been associated with the Atomic bomb literature genre.^[3]

Yoshie Hotta
Yoshie Hotta in 1954
Born	(1918-07-17)17 July 1918 Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, Japan
Died	5 September 1998(1998-09-05) (aged 80)
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	Japanese
Alma mater	Keio University

Biography

A graduate from Keio University, Hotta already published poems and essays in the literary journal Hihyō during his student years.^[4] He experienced the end of the Pacific War in Shanghai, where he stayed for two years to write for the Chinese Nationalist Party before returning to Japan in 1947.^[1] His early works centered on Japan's recent history, thematising events like the bombing of Hiroshima (in Kage no bubun, 1952, or Shimpan, 1963) or the Nanjing Massacre (in Jikan, 1955),^[5] and life in Japan during the early post-war years.^[2] Later, he turned his attention also to International relationships and history, attending meetings of the Afro-Asian Writers' Association and writing books about historic figures like Goya, Montaigne and François de La Rochefoucauld.^[1][6][7]

Selected works

• 1951: Hiroba no kodoku
• 1952: Kage no bubun (Shadow Pieces)
• 1952: Kankan
• 1952: Rekishi
• 1955: Jikan
• 1957: Indo de kangaeta koto
• 1963: Shimpan (Judgment)
• 1971: Hōjōki shiki
• 1974–77: Goya
• 1991–94: Misheru jōkan no hito
• 1998: Ra Roshufūkō kōshaku densetsu

Awards

• 1951: Akutagawa Prize for Hiroba no kōdoku
• 1971: Mainichi Publishing Culture Award for Hōjōki shiki
• 1977: Jirō Osaragi Prize for Goya
• 1977: Lotus Prize for Literature
• 1994: Asahi Prize
• 1998: Japan Art Academy Prize for Literature

Adaptations

Hiroba no kodoku was adapted into a film in 1953, written by Katsuhito Inomata and directed by and starring Shin Saburi.^[8]

Together with Shin'ichirō Nakamura and Takehiko Fukunaga, Hotta wrote the original story which was later adapted into the kaiju film Mothra, first published in Asahi Shimbun.^[9][10]

Bibliography

• Hotta, Yoshie (1994). Judgment. Translated by Tsukui, Nobuko. Osaka: Kansai Gaidai University.
• Rimer, J. Thomas; Gessel, Van C. (2007). "Hotta Yoshie (includes one translated chapter of Kage no bubun)". The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the present. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231138048.
• O'Neill, P.G. (2001). "Shadow Pieces (Kage no bubun)". Collected Writings of P.G. O'Neill: The Collected Writings of Modern Western Scholars on Japan. Vol. 4. Tokyo: Japan Library and Edition Synapse. ISBN 1-873410-50-6.