1. Hideo Kobayashi was a Japanese author, who established literary criticism as an independent art form in Japan.
17 Facts About Hideo Kobayashi
1. 2.
Hideo Kobayashi studied French literature at Tokyo Imperial University, where his classmates included Hidemi Kon and Tatsuji Miyoshi.
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Hideo Kobayashi met Chuya Nakahara in April 1925, with whom he quickly became close friends, but in November of the same year, began living together with Nakahara's former mistress, the actress Yasuko Hasegawa.
4.
Hideo Kobayashi graduated in March 1928, and soon after moved to Osaka for a few months before moving to Nara, where he stayed at the home of Naoya Shiga from May 1928.
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At that time Hideo Kobayashi felt literature should be relevant to society, with writers and critics practicing social responsibilities.
6.
Hideo Kobayashi's editorials covered a wide range from contemporary literature to the classics, philosophy, and the arts.
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Hideo Kobayashi began to serialize his life of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the magazine.
8.
Hideo Kobayashi made Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture his home from 1931 and was a central figure in local literary activity.
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In politics, Hideo Kobayashi praised the writings of militant nationalist Shumei Okawa.
10.
Hideo Kobayashi treated the war as if it were an act of nature, such as a storm, impervious to analysis and beyond human control.
11.
Hideo Kobayashi went to China for the first time in March 1938 as a special correspondent for the popular magazine Bungeishunju, and as a guest of the Imperial Japanese Army.
12.
In 1940, together with Kan Kikuchi and fifty-two other writers including Kawabata Yasunari and Riichi Yokomitsu, Hideo Kobayashi toured Japan, Korea, and Manchukou as members of the Literary Home-Front Campaign, a speech-making troupe organized by Kikuchi to promote support for the war.
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Hideo Kobayashi resigned from teaching at Meiji University in August 1946.
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In 1958, Hideo Kobayashi was awarded the Noma Literary Prize for Kindai kaiga.
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Hideo Kobayashi became a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1959, and was awarded the Order of Culture by the Japanese government in 1967.
16.
Hideo Kobayashi's grave is at the temple of Tokei-ji in Kamakura.
17.
The Kobayashi Hideo Prize was established in 2002 by the Shincho Bungei Shinko Kai.