MIYAZAWA KENJI

Miyazawa Kenji was a poet and author of children’s literature. While growing up, he temporarily left his home in Iwate Prefecture over disagreements with his family but eventually returned. Miyazawa taught at the local agricultural high school and began to write and publish children’s stories, including Ginga tetsudo no yoru (ca. 1927; tr. Night of the Milky Way Railroad, 1984), as well as free verse poems. Miyazawa’s works were influenced by Romanticism and the proletarian literature movement, but most importantly by his devout Buddhist beliefs. He worked throughout his life to educate local farming families and improve the life of peasants. Miyazawa died of pneumonia.