Kobayashi Takiji: Life and Major Works

Born in 1903 in Akita Prefecture. His family moved to Otaru, Hokkaido, while he was still a child; after graduating from Otaru Higher Commercial School he worked at the Hokkaido Colonial Bank while beginning to write fiction. He drew attention with "March 15, 1928," based on the mass arrests carried out that year under the Peace Preservation Law, and established his standing as a leading proletarian writer with "Kanikōsen" ("The Crab Cannery Ship"), published the following year, in 1929. After being fired from the bank because of his writing, he went to Tokyo, served as secretary-general of the Japan Proletarian Writers' League, and in 1931 joined the Japan Communist Party, going underground. In February 1933 he was arrested by the Special Higher Police, and, subjected to horrific torture under interrogation at the Tsukiji police station, died that same day at the age of 29. His death at the hands of state repression is still remembered today as the tragic symbol of the proletarian literature movement.