13 Facts About Daigaku Horiguchi

Daigaku Horiguchi was a poet and translator of French literature in Taisho and Showa period Japan.

Daigaku Horiguchi is credited with introducing French surrealism to Japanese poetry, and to translating the works of over 66 French authors into Japanese.

In 1911, Horiguchi left school to accompany his father on overseas postings and during the next 14 years overseas he became fluent in French and interested in French literature, particularly the novels and poetry of the Symbolist movement.

Daigaku Horiguchi first spent over a year in Mexico, where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, causing Horiguchi to abandon his father's hope that he become a diplomat, and he devoted his time to writing verse and translation of French works instead.

Daigaku Horiguchi was in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, and it was during this time that he was drawn to Parnassianism as a style of verse.

Daigaku Horiguchi subsequently lived for brief periods in Spain, Paris, Brazil and Romania and maintained correspondence with Marie Laurencin and Thomas Mann, whose works he translated while recuperating at a sanatorium in Switzerland.

In 1919, Daigaku Horiguchi published his first anthology of verse, Gekko to Pierrot, and a book of waka verse, Pan no fue.

In 1932, Daigaku Horiguchi moved to the Ishikawa neighborhood of Tokyo.

Daigaku Horiguchi remained in Shizuoka until 1945, and moved briefly to Sekikawa, Niigata before the end of the war.

Daigaku Horiguchi moved back to Shizuoka at the end of World War II, and an anthology of five volumes of his poetry was published in 1947.

In 1967, his submission of poetry in the traditional Japanese style for the Utakai Hajime contest at the Imperial Palace on the topic of fish drew praise from Emperor Hirohito, and Daigaku Horiguchi was awarded the 3rd class of the Order of the Sacred Treasures.

In 1976 a limited edition collection of Daigaku Horiguchi's poems, entitled "Toten no Niji", was illustrated by noted modernist artist Hodaka Yoshida, who contributed seven signed and numbered prints to accompany the poems.

Daigaku Horiguchi's verses combined the flexibility of the Japanese style with hints of the resonance of the French language, and he was noted for making use of colloquial Japanese words in his translations to come closer to the original imagery, rather than attempting to force the translated poems into a more traditional Japanese format.