Tatsuhiko Shibusawa was the pen name of Shibusawa Tatsuo, a novelist, art critic, and translator of French literature active during Shōwa period Japan. Shibusawa wrote many short stories and novels based on French literature and Japanese classics. His essays about black magic, demonology, and eroticism are also popular in Japan.
Early life
Shibusawa was born in the upper-class neighborhood of Takanawa in Tokyo. His father was a banker, and his mother was the daughter of an industrialist and politician. He was distantly related to the famous Shibusawa Eiichi. While going through high school during World War II, he had the ambition to be an aeronautical engineer. However, the possibilities for a career in that field disappeared with Japan's defeat in the war, and Shibusawa received notably poor scores in the German language, which was widely used in engineering at the time. He turned his attention to study of the French language instead. In 1950, after working as an editor at the Modern Nihon magazine under Junnosuke Yoshiyuki for two years, Shibusawa entered the University of Tokyo's school of French literature, where he enthusiastically embraced the avant-garde movement of surrealism, which started in France after World War I. He was especially attracted to André Breton, and this led him to learn of the works of the Marquis de Sade. Although Shibusawa did graduate from a master's course at the University of Tokyo, he had to abandon plans to become a professor because of tuberculosis, and started his career as a freelance writer instead. He relocated from Tokyo to the resort town of Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture in 1946, due to its reputation for having a healthful climate for lung disorders, and continued to live there to his death. After publishing his first book, a translation of Jean Cocteau's Le Grand Ecart in 1954, Shibusawa began to introduce French literature to Japanese readers through his translations. With the death of his father, he faced financial difficulties, and obtained a part-time job at the publishing companyIwanami Shoten, where he met his future wife, Sumiko Yagawa, who was also a translator and author. During this period, he also briefly flirted with politics, supporting the Japan Communist Party in an election for the mayor of Miura, Kanagawa by joining political rallies and distribution leaflets satirizing the opposing candidate.
Literary career
In 1959, Shibusawa published Akutoku no sakae, a translation of de Sade's L’Histoire de Juliette; ou, Les Prosperites du vice. The work was immediately controversial, and in 1960, he and Kyōji Ishii, the publisher, were prosecuted for public obscenity. During the trial, which is called Sade Trial in Japan, Kenzaburō Ōe, Shūsaku Endō, Shōhei Ōoka and many other authors testified for the defense. However, in 1969, in an important decision, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled that Shibusawa and Ishii were guilty. He was fined 70,000 yen ; the triviality of the sum greatly outraged him, given the nine years that the trial had taken from his life. Shibusawa, although discouraged, was not deterred, and continued to write works on eroticism and to translate the works of de Sade, as well as other French authors; he also produced essays and art criticism, and became a specialist in the study of medieval demonology. In September 1970, Shibusawa made his first overseas trip, a vacation to Europe. He was seen off at Haneda Airport by his close friendMishima Yukio. Madame de Sade by Mishima is entirely based on Shibusawa's The Life of Marquis de Sade ; but on the other hand, today it is known that Shibusawa himself plagiarized his own work largely from Vie du Marquis de Sade by Gilbert Lely. In The Temple of Dawn, Mishima created Yasushi Imanishi based on Shibusawa's personality. 1981 he published a fantasy novel titled Karakusa Monogatari. Other fantasy novels include Utsuro-bune and Takaoka Shinno Kokai-ki. Shibusawa died of a rupture of a carotidaneurysm while he was hospitalized for larynx cancer in 1987. His grave is at the temple of Jochi-ji in Kamakura.
