14 Facts About Naoya Shiga

Naoya Shiga was a Japanese writer active during the Taisho and Showa periods of Japan, whose work was distinguished by its lucid, straightforward style and strong autobiographical overtones.

In 1885, the family moved to Tokyo and Naoya Shiga given into his grandparents' custody.

Naoya Shiga's mother died when he was twelve, an experience that marked the beginning of an obsession with and fear of death both on an individual and a collective level, and which stayed with him until his early thirties.

Naoya Shiga's imagination was inspired by nature, and he was an avid reader of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as of Lafcadio Hearn's stories of the supernatural.

At the age of 18, Naoya Shiga converted to Christianity under the influence of Uchimura Kanzo, but struggled with his new religion due to his own homosexual tendencies.

Naoya Shiga graduated from the Gakushuin Peer's Elementary School in 1906 and started studying English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, but left two years later without a degree.

In 1910, Naoya Shiga co-founded the magazine Shirakaba, the literary publication of the Shirakaba-ha.

Naoya Shiga contributed the story As Far as Abashiri to the first issue.

In 1914, Naoya Shiga married Sada Kadenokoji, a widow with a six-year-old daughter, which led to a complete break between father and son.

Naoya Shiga followed with a series of short stories and A Dark Night's Passing ; the latter, his only full length novel, was serialized in the socialist magazine Kaizo and is regarded as his major work.

Naoya Shiga's work influenced many later writers, including Kazu Ozaki, Kiku Amino, Motojiro Kajii, Takiji Kobayashi, Fumio Niwa, Kosaku Takii, Kiyoshi Naoi, Toshimasa Shimamura, Hiroyuki Agawa and Shizuo Fujieda.

Naoya Shiga published very few new works in his later years.

Naoya Shiga served as the first post-war president of the Japan PEN Club from 1947 to 1948, and was awarded the Order of Culture in 1949.

Naoya Shiga died of pneumonia on October 21,1971, at Kanto Central Public Hospital in Setagaya, Tokyo.