HORI TATSUO

   Hori Tatsuo was a writer, poet, and translator born in Tokyo and graduated from Tokyo University. As a student he helped to translate French poetry for Roba (Donkey), a literary journal. During his literary career, he wrote a number of novelettes and poems. His early writing was in the spirit of proletarian literature, while his later work tended more toward modernism. Much of his work, such as his most famous novel Kaze tachinu (1936–37; tr. The Wind Awakes, 1947), a love story set in a mountain sanitarium, was characterized by the theme of death, reflecting his own struggle with tuberculosis, to which he eventually succumbed at age 49.

   See also MARXISM; NAKAMURA SHIN’ICHIRO; NAKANO SHIGEHARU; SATA INEKO.