Kanagaki Robun Explained

Kanagaki Robun
Native Name:仮名垣 魯文
Native Name Lang:ja
Birth Date:9 February 1829
Nationality:Japanese
Other Names:Nozaki Bunzō (野崎 文蔵)
Alma Mater:Hanagasa Bunkyō (master)
Occupation:Journalist, writer, novelist
Employer:Worked for Kanagawa Prefectural Government, Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun

was the pen name of (1829 - 1894), a Japanese author and journalist.

Career

Kanagaki Robun, the son of a fishmonger,[1] was originally known for light fiction in the gesaku genre. He is said to have met painter Kawanabe Kyosai while writing an account of the 1855 Edo earthquake on the day after it happened. Kyosai's sketch of a catfish, accompanying Robun's text, was Kyosai's first single-sheet ukiyo-e woodblock print. Its commercial success saw Robun producing a sequence of catfish pictures (known as namazu-e).[2] In 1874 the pair collaborated to create what was effectively Japan's first manga magazine, Eshinbun nipponchi (Illustrated News).[1]

In 1874 Robun turned to journalism, joining the Yokohama mainichi shinbun and going on in 1875 to found his own newspaper, the Kana-yomi shinbun (Kana Newspaper). His newspaper pioneered the genre of "dokufu-mono," criminal biographies of female outlaws, and Kanagaki Robun's own Tale of Takahashi Oden the She-Devil (written rapidly after Takahashi Oden was beheaded for killing a man) is the most famous example of the genre.[3]

He also wrote illustrated biographies, including an adapted biography of Ulysses S. Grant published for Grant's 1879 visit to Japan.[4]

Works

Notes and References

  1. Book: Peter Duus. Hans Harder . Barbara Mittler. Asian Punches: A Transcultural Affair. https://books.google.com/books?id=4RpGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA319. 2013. Springer Science & Business Media. 978-3-642-28607-0. 319. 'Punch Pictures': Localising Punch in Edo Japan.
  2. Book: Hiroshi Nara. Inexorable Modernity: Japan's Grappling with Modernity in the Arts. 2007. Lexington Books. 978-0-7391-5637-7. 22.
  3. Book: Mark Silver. Purloined Letters: Cultural Borrowing and Japanese Crime Literature, 1868-1937. 2008. University of Hawaii Press. 978-0-8248-3188-2. 30–32.
  4. Book: Scott J. Miller. Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater. 2009. Scarecrow Press. 978-0-8108-6319-4. 46.