Kurata Hyakuzō: Life and Major Works

Born in 1891 to a dry-goods merchant family in Shōbara Village, Hiba District, Hiroshima Prefecture (now Shōbara City). He graduated top of his class from Miyoshi Middle School and went on to the First Higher School, but while there he was moved by Nishida Kitarō's "An Inquiry into the Good" and visited Nishida in Kyoto, transferring to the humanities course. In 1913 he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and dropped out of the First Higher School, spending his days thereafter in convalescence and contemplation. In 1915 he entered Kyoto's Ittōen community with his sister and experienced a life of deep religious devotion. His 1917 play "Shukke to Sono Deshi" ("The Priest and His Disciples"), depicting the conflict between love and faith through Shinran and his disciple Yuien, sold 140,000 copies during the Taishō era and became a bestseller praised even by Romain Rolland. Together with his essay collection "Ai to Ninshiki to no Shuppatsu" ("The Departure of Love and Understanding"), it made him a thinker of enormous influence on Taishō-era youth. In the Shōwa period he grew increasingly drawn to Japanism through his study of Shinran. He died in 1943 of rib caries at his home in Ōmori, Tokyo, at the age of 51.