ODA SAKUNOSUKE

(1913–1947)

Oda Sakunosuke, nicknamed Saku, was an Osaka-born novelist. While at Kyoto University he suffered a lung hemorrhage and had to recuperate in the country for two years. When he returned to school he was unable to concentrate and dropped out and began writing plays and novels, the latter influenced by Stendhal. His first two novels, Ame (Rain, 1938) and Zokushu (Vulgarity, 1939), brought him a nomination for the Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize. His Meoto zenzai (1940; tr. Stories of Osaka Life, 1990) followed the life of a married couple whose relationship survives, despite the husband’s neglect, and was the catalyst to his becoming a full-time writer. During the war, some of his very realistic novels were banned. Critics sometimes group him with Dazai Osamu and Sakaguchi Ango as the Buraiha (hoodlums clique). Oda died in 1947 of tuberculosis in Tokyo and is currently memorialized through the Oda Sakunosuke Prize.