Miyazawa Kenji: Life and Major Works

Born in 1896 in Hanamaki-kawaguchi, Hienuki District, Iwate Prefecture (now Hanamaki City). He studied agricultural chemistry at Morioka Higher Agricultural and Forestry School, and devoted faith to the Lotus Sutra and devotion to farming villages became the twin axes of his life. In his lifetime he published only the poetry collection "Haru to Shura" ("Spring and Asura") and the story collection "Chūmon no Ōoi Ryōriten" ("The Restaurant of Many Orders"), and, remaining largely unknown, he worked in Hanamaki as an agricultural school teacher and farming instructor, founding the Rasu Farmers' Association in 1926 to improve the lives of local farmers. Most of the works widely loved today — "Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru" ("Night on the Galactic Railroad"), "Serohiki no Gōshu" ("Gauche the Cellist"), "Kaze no Matasaburō" ("Matasaburō of the Wind") — survived as unpublished manuscripts and were published one after another after his death, establishing his reputation as a beloved national writer of children's literature. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1933 at the age of 37. The poem "Ame ni mo Makezu" ("Not Losing to the Rain"), found written in his notebook, was also discovered after his death and has since become widely known.