Sato Haruo and Modern Japanese Literature

摘要

If asked to list some of the outstanding authors ofjapanese fiction from the Taisho (1912-1926) and early Showa (1926-1930S) periods, the names that come to mind include Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Kawabata Yasunari, Hayashi Fumiko, and Okamoto Kanoko. Very few would think to mention Sato Haruo. This is a great pity because, as Charles Exley's informative new book makes clear, Sato enriched the world of Japanese literary and visual culture hugely during that period not only by excelling in the writing of essays, poetry, travelogues, novels and short stories, but also through his notable accomplishments as an oil painter. His love affair with Tanizaki's first wife during the 1920s, her subsequent divorce and Sato's eventual marriage to her provided entertainment for mass media publications hungry for a good scandal and raised Sato's public profile as a participant in what came to be known as the 'wife transfer incident' (fujin joto jiken). When Sato died in 1964, he had so many friends and students that he jokingly referred to himself as the Man of Three Thousand Disciples (montei sanzennin).