Kurahara Shinjiro / 蔵原 伸二郎
Born in Kumamoto Prefecture in 1899, Kurahara Shinjiro (1899-1965) studied French literature at Keio Gijuku University; but since his original goal was to become an art school student, he spent most of his time drawing pictures of pottery exhibited in museums. And from early on he had a taste for antiques. In his twenties he wrote short stories. His first collection, The Landscape with a Cat, was published in 1927. In his thirties he focused on poetry and his first book of poems, The Full Moon in East, came out when he was forty. In spite of six books of poetry he is forgotten today. These six poems are from his last collection, Char, which won the Yomiuri Literary Prize just before he died in 1965. The bilingual edition of Char was published by Dowa-ya in 2010.
Co-translated by William I. Elliott, poet and translator, ex-editor-in-chief of Poetry Kanto, whose selected poems, A Night’s Entertainment, was published in 2009. He has translated many books of Japanese poetry, and he has intensively concentrated on the works of Tanikawa Shuntaro. His latest translation is Tanikawa’s book of poems, I, published by Vagabond Press. Co-translator Nishihara Katsumasa is a co-editor of Poetry Kanto whose recent books are Light Verse in America, translations of Selected Poems of W.D. Snodgrass and a Field Sing-A-Long by Kudo Naoka.
