Kiyoteru Hanada

Kiyoteru Hanada (花田 清輝, Hanada Kiyoteru, 29 March 1909 - 23 September 1974) was a Japanese literary critic and essayist in the Shōwa period of Japan. Jukki Hanada is his grandson.

Biography

Hanada was born in Fukuoka prefecture, and was a graduate of Kyoto Imperial University. He moved to Tokyo and became a journalist for the Gunji Kogyo Shimbun, a pro-government military-industrial economic newspaper. He was initially attracted the Japanese fascist movement promoted by Nakano Seigō.

However, during World War II, he defied the Peace Preservation Laws, and published numerous essays that were highly critical of the government, and the growth of Japanese militarism in the literary magazine Bunka Soshiki, which he founded in 1939.

After World War II, he contributed works to the literary magazine Kindai Bungei, and published a book of literary criticism, Fukkoku no seishin, a collection of essays on various writers, including Dante and Cervantes, in 1946. As a leading member of the Shin-Nihon Bungakukai he helped promote the works of The First Generation of Postwar Writers.

He was very interested in the growth of Japanese radio drama and television, and played a role in the development of integrated audio-visual art. In politics, Hanada was a devout Marxist and active member of the Japan Communist Party, and strongly believed that art should serve politics.

Hanada was a founder of Yoru no Kai (The Night Society) and a theoretical leader of avant-garde arts in Japan after World War II. He favored the avant-garde artists Okamoto Taro and Abe Kobo. He was executive adviser of Sinzenbisha, which published Abe Kobo's first novel, For the Signpost at the End of the Road, on his recommendation. Hanada developed a philosophy which he coined "Mineralism" (Kobutushugi), which combined materialism with a sense of values. Contemporaries regarded Abe as a faithful pupil of Hanada's way of thinking, and in turn, Abe was inspired by a number of Hanada's essays in his work.

Hanada died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and his grave is located in Matsudo city, Chiba prefecture.

See also

• Radio drama in Japan
• List of Japanese authors

References

• Hanada, Kiyoteru, Hanada Kiyoteru, Kokusho Kankokai (1994). ISBN 4-336-03239-4 (Japanese)
• Sekine, Hiroshi. Hanada Kiyoteru: Nijisseiki no kodokusha. Riburopoto (1987). ISBN 4-8457-0288-6 (Japanese)