Pathway to Japanese Literature

1899 (Meiji 32)

February 13.
She was born in Tokyo City’s Koishikawa Ward, Haramachi.
Father Chūjō Seiichirō (architect); Mother Yoshie.

From ten months after birth until age three, she was raised in Sapporo with parents.

1905 (Meiji 38)

Entered Tokyo City Hongō Ward Komomoto Ordinary Higher Elementary School.
Father had gone to England.
There was a small baby organ in our house. Young Mother, wearing a brown silk hairpin adorned with rose flowers, played it and sang out loudly, "Ural no Kanata, Kaze Arete" ("Beyond the Urals, the Winds Rage").
On postcards bearing warship illustrations, Mother would densely pack tiny characters and send them to Father in England.
During New Year's, I was made to wear a chirimen crepe haori with wide sleeves.
Mother suddenly rushed out to the veranda, faced the garden where frost pillars stood beneath the podocarpus tree, raised both hands high above her head, and shouted, “Banzai! Banzai!”
Her voice was sharp, her face pale as she spilled tears.
I felt so startled I wanted to cry, but shouted “Banzai!” along with Mother.
When I stood beside her and raised my hands, those haori sleeves felt terribly heavy.
—The Russo-Japanese War remains etched in my memory in this form.

1907 (Meiji 40)

[June], Father returned.

191[1] (Meiji 40[4])

Graduated from Hongō Seishi Ordinary Elementary School.
She entered Ochanomizu Girls' High School.

During summer vacation, she wrote her debut novel, but before she knew it, she had lost it somewhere.

Gradually, she began reading various things haphazardly.
"The Tale of the Heike," "An Account of My Hut"
She copied Saikaku (!) and other works extensively, translated them into colloquial language, added covers, and created handmade books.

She imitated Yosano Akiko’s Colloquial Translation of The Tale of Genji and wrote a full-length novel titled Nishikigi.
(Dragonfly's Stub Tail) She also wrote a story about a forest witch.

Her parents were busy with their own lives.
The intricate details of family and married life became apparent to me, and I began to feel critical of my parents.

Ochanomizu Girls' High School was also dull.
She lived with a gloomy intensity.
She often skipped school or left early to go to Ueno Library.
She would sometimes roll around in the grass of Satakegahara.
There was an old nursemaid doing piecework behind a sake shop with a reed screen hung; she once spent an entire day there.

She came under the influence of the likes of Ichiyō and Wilde.
Mother once gave me two books as a gift.
It was a collection of Allan Poe’s masterpieces.
From then on, she would occasionally give me one or two yen with which to buy books.

Around her fourth year at girls' school, she became engrossed in Russian literature.
Tolstoy captivated me the most.
She wrote something like a historical drama featuring Pope Gregory [VII], whom she had learned about in Western history.
The beginning of my immature pedantic era; the Japanese literary world was flourishing with humanitarianism.

1916 (Taishō 5)

In her fifth year at girls' school, she continued her annual visits since childhood to the Fukushima countryside where her grandmother lived.
Gathering those impressions, she wrote a novel titled "Farmers".
She graduated from girls' school and entered Mejiro Women's University English Literature Preparatory Course.

She rewrote "Farmers" and retitled it "Poor People’s Group".
It was about two hundred pages long.
She had Mother read it and also had a close friend read it.
It was decided that she would take it to Professor Tsubouchi Yūzō and meet with Takiya Choin of Chūō Kōron; after being slightly shortened, it was published in the September issue of Chūō Kōron.
A paper package labeled "modest remuneration" contained 150 yen.

She had quit the women's university after one term.

1917 (Taishō 6)

“The Sun Shone” (Chūō Kōron), “Old Man Saburō” ([Tokyo Nichinichi]), “The Land is Abundant” (Chūō Kōron), “A Budding”

The standalone book *Poor People’s Group* was published by Genbunsha.

1918 (Taishō 7)

The standalone book *A Budding* was published by Shinchosha as part of their New Writers Series.

“Priest Miyata” (Chūō Kōron)

She became a trainee humanitarian writer but maintained absolutely no connection with the so-called literary establishment of that time.
She knew only a few figures like Kume Masao and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and had no intention of entering the literary world itself.

Wanting to write about the Ainu being driven toward ethnic extinction, she went to Hokkaido.
From March to August, she wandered through various Ainu villages.
In August, her father came to Sapporo on business; during their train ride back together, he asked if she would accompany him to America.
She resolved to go.
On September 26, she departed Tokyo.

On November 11, standing on the terrace of a small hotel in New York, she looked down at the scene on the day the European Great War armistice took effect.

191[9] (Taishō [8])

She married in New York.

“A Beautiful Moonlit Night” (Chūō Kōron)

She returned to Japan in December.

192[0] (Taishō [9])

From this year onward began a quagmire-like period spanning roughly four years.
Believing she had escaped her petty bourgeois parents’ exclusive household when she looked around what she found herself and her partner sinking into was yet another stingy narrow household devoid of human warmth.

She suffered like a caged beast.
She tormented her partner as well.
Her partner after fifteen years of hardship in America wanted to rest.
Only *Twilight*
She wrote *Old Small Pictures* and others like it.

She believed it was around the summer of Taishō 11.
Yamakawa Kikue and others were the actual initiators who worked with Yosano Akiko, Haniwara Hisawayo, and many others in the Russian Famine Relief Association.

1923 (Taishō 12)

She did not directly suffer damage from the Great Kantō Earthquake.

She conducted small-scale relief efforts centered around Miyake Yasuko's *Woman Current*.

She became acquainted with Nogami Yaeko during these years.

1924 (Taishō 13)

From around spring, she became able to write a little.
"River of the Heart"
"Italian Antique Pottery" and others.

She became acquainted with Yuasa Yoshiko.

In summer, she divorced.
She wrote the first part of her novel *Nobuko*, titled "Indiscernible Footsteps," and published it in *Kaizō*.

1925 (Taishō 14)

She divided *Nobuko* into three or four parts and serialized them in *Kaizō*.
She also wrote "Howl," "Nagasaki Travelogue," "White Wings," and others.

1926 (Shōwa 1)

*Nobuko*
was completed.
“Kazuto and Mother” (Josei), “Primitive Landscape” (Fujin Kōron), and others.

1927 (Shōwa 2)

While preparing *Nobuko* for publication as a standalone book, she wrote "Kōdaiji" (Shinchō), "Sail" (Bungei Shunjū), "White Mosquito Net" ([Chūō Kōron]), "Town" (Josei), "A Single Flower" (Kaizō), and others.

In early December, she departed for Soviet Russia with Yuasa Yoshiko.
On December 15th, she arrived in Moscow.

1928 (Shōwa 3)

The standalone book *Nobuko* was published by Kaizōsha.
In spring, she wrote "Impressions of Moscow" (Kaizō).
In autumn, she sent "Red Freight Car" (Kaizō) from Moscow.

That summer, on August 1st, her younger brother Hideo (age twenty-one) committed suicide back home.
In the final letter he had written to his sister but never sent, there was a phrase urging her not to hate anything.

The unexpected death—the downfall—of her brother, which she witnessed day and night while living amidst it, and the Soviet Union's new social phase, blazing forth as it advanced, opened her eyes from both sides.
The direction, form, and meaning that should unite the battles she had fought alone became clear.
She gained an entirely new perspective on political action.
As an artist, I will never abandon my uncompromising stance toward the current social system.
I will never relinquish this hatred—so I vowed.

That autumn, she sailed down the vast Volga River and toured the Caucasus, Baku oil fields, and Donbass coal mines with Yuasa.

1929 (Shōwa 4)

From January through April, she was hospitalized at Moscow (University) First Affiliated Hospital due to severe cholecystitis.

From May through late November, she toured Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London, and other cities.
The decay of European capitalist countries' culture—both past and present—was astonishing.
In truth, she had been told by her doctor to visit the Karlsbad Springs in Czechoslovakia, but she had no money.

1930 (Shōwa 5)

In February: "Impressions of London" (Kaizō).
In autumn, she sent "Children, Children, Children of Moscow" (Kaizō).

She sent two or three manuscripts to *Senki*.
Some were accepted, but others were not.

In early summer, she went on an inspection tour to the large state farm "Gigant" in the Crimea and Don regions.

Yuasa was set to return to Japan, and I was at a loss about what to do myself.
I finally decided to return.

On October 25th, she departed Moscow and arrived in Tokyo on November [8th].

In [mid-December], she joined the All-Japan Proletarian Arts Federation Writers' Union.

The Chūjō Yuriko Collection was published by Heibonsha in a combined volume with the Uno Chiyo Collection.

1931 (Shōwa 6)

She wrote "March 8th Is Women's Day" (Kaizō), "The Red Flag Fluttering at Smolny" (Osaka Mainichi), "The Soviet Five-Year Plan and Art" (NAPP), as well as other writings introducing and sharing impressions of the Soviet Union.
In March, the Chūjō Yuriko Collection was published by Kaizōsha in a combined volume with Tamura Toshiko and Nogami Yaeko.

January.
She became a member of the Writers' Union Central Committee and, [in July], a standing central committee member.

September.
In the Proletarian Literary Movement, Japan's semi-feudal social conditions imposed immense social and cultural burdens on women, significantly hindering their literary development.
In special consideration of this situation, the "Women's Committee" was organized to support the literary growth of women—particularly working women and those in rural areas.
Simultaneously within the Writers' Union, committees were established: for Peasant Literature, Children's Literature, guiding youth's literary creativity, and supporting the independent development of colonial literature from Korea, Taiwan, and other regions in relation to their respective national cultures.
I became responsible for this Women's Committee.

The organization of these committees marked an event in which the Proletarian Literary Movement, for the first time in the history of Japanese literature, affirmed the cultural right to exist not only of workers but also of women, children, farmers, colonial peoples, and others.
I was able to understand the essential nature of these committees.
However, guiding the Women's Committee's activities extensively, actively, and concretely proved difficult given my experience at the time.
Yet after the Women's Committee's establishment, young writers and poets began publishing several works in the fields of novels and poetry.
At literary lectures co-hosted by *Women's Art* and others, the social and literary significance of the Women's Committee came to be particularly understood, serving as encouragement for women who loved literature.

October.
The All-Japan Proletarian Arts Federation became the Japan Proletarian Cultural League, encompassing not only artistic groups but also organizations of scientists, philosophers, educators, and those involved in social medicine.
The Manchurian Incident—Japanese imperialism’s war of aggression in Manchuria—began, and the proletariat opposing Japan’s authoritarian regime sought to unite with anti-fascist movements worldwide.
The formation of the Japan Proletarian Cultural League held significant meaning from this perspective.
The Writers' Union joined the organization.
Each committee within the participating groups established councils, and she assumed responsibility for the Women’s Council.
From the Japan Proletarian Cultural League, alongside each group’s respective organs, *Proletarian Culture* was published.
That month, they united with the party organization.

November.
From the Women’s Council came plans to publish a magazine for working women.
For working-class women’s magazines, there had been *Senki* and *Fujin Senki* which had begun circulation, but these were discontinued as *Hataraku Fujin* was now to be launched.
This method involved forming an editorial department from the Women’s Council, with each participating organization contributing their unique expertise to the editing process.
I became the editor-in-chief of *Hataraku Fujin*.
For me as a writer at that time, involvement in magazine editorial work felt burdensome.
Yet regarding it as essential experience for a class-conscious author, I edited from the inaugural January issue through the March edition of the following year.
Subsequently, Sata Ineko assumed the editorship.
This change occurred because my arrest in April had necessitated a transfer of responsibility.
That year saw me engage extensively in writing introductory and educational pieces.
The travelogue *Crossing New Siberia* was published by Naigaisha.

1932 (Shōwa 7)

February.
She married Miyamoto Kenji.
She acquired a house in Hongō Dōzaka.

[April] 7th.
Suppression was carried out against cultural organizations.

I was arrested at Komagome Police Station (eighty days), and Miyamoto Kenji entered underground life.

September.

During a meeting of the Japan Proletarian Cultural League Women's Council, all members were arrested and detained for one month.

The participating groups of the Japan Proletarian Cultural League—which had begun their activities opposing Japanese fascism and the war of aggression as an expression of working-class social voice—suffered severe destruction from the nationwide suppression in late March.
At the same time, brutal suppression against the Communist Party, the working class's political party, intensified further, and leaders began to be tortured and murdered.

These two circumstances became intertwined, and in the Proletarian Cultural Movement of that time—just as with the lived reality of workers—instances where political protests and demands from the working class were carried out through cultural methods increased.
In countries like Japan that lacked various forms of democratic life, such convergence under fascism became inevitable.
Because they could not freely read the illegal party organ, readers also strove to discover within proletarian cultural publications elements that would guide, inspire, and organize their class consciousness.
The editors, too, sought to address readers' demands as much as possible despite the adverse conditions of class-based publishing.

The notion that Japan’s proletarian cultural movement developed a distinct political bias from late 1932 through 1933 persists even today as a preconception—nay, a prejudice.
While this perception has become the seed for disparaging the Proletarian Literary Movement, one must consider in tandem Japan’s particular brand of authoritarian barbarity, the absence of diverse class-based cultural organizations in mass life, and the embryonic state of cultural circles that had only just begun forming.

October.

The suppression of left-wing forces intensified, and the publication of magazines such as *Hataraku Fujin* (Working Women), *Proletarian Culture*, and *Proletarian Literature* increasingly ceased.
Iwata Yoshimichi was murdered through police torture.

Writing

While serializing the novel *Paving Stones* in *Fujin no Tomo*, publication was discontinued due to arrest.

1933 (Shōwa 8)

February 20th.
Kobayashi Takiji was tortured to death at Tsukiji Police Station.
On the night of the wake, I visited Kobayashi's residence and was taken to Suginami Police Station, but that evening several women had already been detained from Kobayashi's house and brought there, so I was sent back because there was no space to hold me.

I edited the Kobayashi Takiji special issue of *Taishū no Tomo* Extra Edition.

December [26th].
Miyamoto Kenji was betrayed by a spy at Kudanshita and arrested.
The spy was Takahashi, nicknamed Turtle, who had been active in the Tokyo region of the Japanese Communist Party at that time.

In 1933, literary activity became virtually impossible.
The suppression of left-wing forces allowed no space for proletarian writers within journalism, and from my personal circumstances as well, there was not a single day of peace.
The Proletarian Writers' Union stood on the brink of dissolution as fierce disagreements erupted among its leading central committee members.
Amidst roaring turmoil, critics denounced "political bias" as a leadership flaw in cultural and literary movements spearheaded by figures like Kurahara Korehito, Kobayashi Takiji, and Miyamoto Kenji, while Yamada Seizaburō, Hayashi Fusao, and others worked energetically to dismantle the Proletarian Writers' Union.

The Soviet Union completed its First Five-Year Plan and, through this process, was able to fully transform the intelligentsia, engineers, scholars, and other social elements that had previously maintained some distance from proletarian class development into collaborators in the proletariat's social achievements.
Based on this reality, in the Soviet Union, the Proletarian Writers' Union was dissolved, and the All-Soviet Writers' Union—which broadly unified groups such as fellow traveler writers and peasant writers—was organized.
And the creative method of socialist realism was proposed.
In Japan, this socialist realist creative method was interpreted entirely in terms of eradicating class character from art.
This interpretation was then used as a pretext to criticize the "politicalism" of Japan's proletarian cultural and literary movements.

This warped interpretation of socialist realism sparked various forms of realism debates across the literary sphere.
Takeda Rintarō's brand of realism—obsessed with cataloging social customs—stood at the vanguard of this trend.
Every one of these realism disputes shared a defining trait: the systematic erasure of class consciousness.
Sata Ineko, Eguchi Kan, and I rejected this imposed "self-criticism," our positions perpetually clashing with those of the Writers' Union Standing Committee's secretary-general and his faction.
Yet lacking both theoretical sophistication and organizational experience, we found ourselves compelled to endorse conclusions whose fundamental errors glared with objective clarity.

Writing

January.
A series of non-proletarian works.

August.

"Maxim Gorky: The Man and His Art" (essay), novel *The Koshu Family* (Bungei)

1934 (Shōwa 9)

January.
In mid-January, a plan to rescue Miyamoto Kenji, who had been arrested at Kōjimachi Police Station, was published in the newspapers.
Two or three days later, I was arrested.

February.

The Writers' Union disbanded.

June.

Since January, she had been transferred through Komagome, Komatsukawa, Suginami, and Yotsuya Police Stations, but on June 13th was suddenly released due to her mother’s critical condition. My mother, hospitalized at Juntendo Hospital with lung gangrene, passed away fifteen minutes after I rushed to her side. My six months in detention had damaged my health, leaving me suffering from heart weakness. This year saw heightened attention on ideological conversion among proletarian artists. Murayama Tomoyoshi’s *Byakuya* and other confessional novels appeared—works by intelligentsia members who had yielded to authority by framing their surrender through the schism between collective action and individual identity. No works addressed the inherent inhumanity of the Public Security Preservation Law itself. This absence serves as a historical key to understanding how Japan’s intelligentsia and laborers endured continuous torment under this law from that time until 1945. Regarding these issues, she wrote several literary critiques and criticisms.

Writing

January.
The novel *Kagamimochi* (Shinchō)

August.
*Dongonroku* (Kaizō)

October.
*Turgenev’s Way of Life*
(Bun[ka] Shūdan)

November.

When a Married Couple Are Writers.
(Social Commentary)

December.
An Evaluation of Balzac.

1935 (Shōwa 10)

[November of the previous year].
She moved to a house in Yodobashi Ward, Kami-Ochiai.
In early December [of the same year], she learned through the evening paper that Miyamoto had been sent to Ichigaya Prison.
She hurriedly sewed padded clothing and delivered it as a prison visit parcel.
After one year in police custody, Miyamoto was indicted without any charges specified.
Visiting Ichigaya once a week became her routine.
The fact that Miyamoto had at least not been killed by the police and had gone to Ichigaya greatly relieved me.
I felt able to write fiction again.
I published the novel *Breasts* in Chūō Kōron.
(In April) This novel was later included in an anthology of revolutionary literature in the Soviet Union.

In [mid-]May, she was arrested at Yotsuya Police Station on the grounds that it constituted a resumption of interrogations suspended the previous year due to her mother's death.

October.
She was indicted on the grounds that she "had engaged in activities of the Proletarian Writers' League, an affiliate organization of the Japanese Communist Party, and had propagated communism."
She was sent to Ichigaya Prison.

Writing

At this time, the essay collection Winter Buds was published during imprisonment.

January.
She wrote "What Can We Learn from Balzac" for *The Reappraisal of Classics*.
This served as a rebuttal to the realism theory claiming that whatever a writer pens inevitably reflects reality.

January.
Dissatisfaction and Hope.
(Social Commentary)

January.
*A Girl from the Village*.
(Social Commentary)

April.
*New Monogamy.*

May.
*Breasts*
(Chūō Kōron)

September.
The novel *Tottei*.
(She wrote this during her detention at Yodobashi Police Station.) Among other works.

1936 (Shōwa 11)

January.
The preliminary hearing began with her being transported between Ichigaya Prison and Tokyo District Court.

On January 30, she was temporarily released from prison due to her father’s sudden death to attend his funeral.

February.
She learned of the February 26 Incident in court.
Because the janitor inadvertently mentioned the term "martial law" to the preliminary judge.

March.
In late March, the preliminary hearing concluded.
Due to her severely compromised health, she was admitted directly from Ichigaya to Keio University Hospital.

June.
She was sentenced at trial to two years' imprisonment with a four-year suspension of execution.
Throughout the preliminary hearing and trial, I could not assert the class nature of literature.

July.

She was placed under probation surveillance by the Probation Office.
Mochizuki Motoi, who had been head of the Special Higher Police at the Metropolitan Police Department, served as its director.
Mochizuki had been one of the principal architects who infiltrated spies and directed their activities during the intra-party spy purge incident involving Miyamoto.

When first summoned to the probation office, this Mochizuki appeared carrying a bean-shaped metal pipe and said, “Well now, do you think you’ve done something wrong?”
The emotions of that moment would remain etched in her memory for life.

August.
She began writing a biography of Maxim Gorky.
She became engrossed and wrote about one-third of it, but her health did not hold out, and she had to suspend the work.

The four-year period from 1932, during which I was repeatedly placed in situations where I could not write, became an opportunity for me to elevate my enlightening literary activities to a more literary level.
During the time I couldn’t write, I naturally came to think deeply about my own works, others’ writings, and the very nature of literature.
Feeling the unnaturalness of living with her brother’s family to concentrate on her work, in late December she decided to move to Mejiro.

Writing

May.
*My Father.*

July.
The Science That Art Requires.

*The Distinctive Characteristics of Maxim Gorky's Development.*
(Literary Criticism), *The Late Gorky*.
(Literary Criticism), *The Women Portrayed by Gorky.*
(Literary Criticism)

September.
*Themes of Works and Themes of Life.*
(Literary Criticism)

*October's Literary Review*

October.
Notes on *A Certain Woman*.
(Literary Criticism)

November.
The Social Dimensions in Natural Description.
(Literary Review), *Twilight Street* (Social Commentary)

December.
Unopened Flowers.
(Social Commentary), Years of Profound Significance.
(Author Study)

1937 (Showa 12)

In July of that year, using the Marco Polo Bridge Incident as a provocation, Japan’s imperial power launched an aggressive war against China.
Japan's entire culture came to be placed under the overt control of the military and the Prosecutor’s Office Thought Division.
Kishida Kunio, the first cultural department head of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, followed by Takahashi Kenji and others who assumed the same position, did nothing to protect culture.
It became a historical fact that Kikuchi Kan, Nakamura Murao, and others who had vehemently stressed "the pure artistry of literature" at the dawn of the 1930s now took the lead in facilitating the enslavement of culture for military purposes during this period.
Also noteworthy was how Hayashi Fusao—who had opposed proletarian literary theory while championing "Literary Revival"—promptly wrote reportage in Shanghai while drunk on beer.
The "Pen Club" too became the "Japan Pen Club" under international solidarity, while the Japan Romantic School group—led by Kamei Katsuichirō, Yasuda Yojūrō, and Nakagawa Yoichi—disseminated fascist literature adorned with paeans to the Japanese spirit.
The poetess Fukao Sumako went to Italy and sang paeans to Mussolini and fascism.
I wrote vigorously at my home in Mejiro while going to Sugamo for meetings almost every day.
Within the limits of permissible expression, I wanted to depict the reality of Japan where war was destroying lives and even elementary school upperclassmen were beginning to be mobilized for labor.
Every novel written that year stood upon the author's fundamental aspiration.
However, expression proved difficult, and each work could only barely manage to convey opposition to the war as an overarching mood permeating the entire text.
In literary criticism, there was an intention to investigate the essence of so-called Japanese-ness and combat pseudo-humanism.

In January of this year, she moved to the house at Mejiro 3-3570.
From the end of autumn 1931 onward, around the time meetings with Miyamoto were gradually increasing in frequency, the house where she had been living stood right nearby.
The newly relocated house occupied a position where morning and evening comings and goings passed alongside that two-story shop.
At the Mejiro house that year, she wrote prolifically.

Writing

January.
*Mothers Who Write for Children.*
(Social Commentary), *Gide and His Soviet Travelogue.*

February.
*On Love for the Younger Generation.*
*Pearl S. Buck’s Literary Style and Other Matters.*
The Japanese Elements in Contemporary Literature.
*On the Reality of "Adult Literature".*
*Ōgai, Akutagawa, and Kikuchi's Historical Novels.*
Ōgai, Sōseki, Tōson, et al.
*The Fourth Sunday in March* (Novel).
*Gide and Pravda's Criticism.*

April.
*The Path to Humanism.*

May.
The Realm of Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō.

June.
*Cat Cart* (Novel).
*After Hesitation*.
(A Review of Yokomitsu Riichi's *Kitchen Diary*) The Nature Reflected in Tōson's Literature.

Books.
That year, the short story collection *Breasts* was published by Takezumi Shobō, and the essay collection *Day and Night Essays* was published by Hakuyōsha.

1938 (Showa 13)

From January of that year until around April or May of the following year, it became impossible to publish works.
As the war progressed, censorship of publications grew increasingly severe, leaving editors uncertain what standards to follow to avoid bans.
The suppression of speech in Japan was advancing at such an accelerated pace.
Censorship was administered through the Home Ministry’s Police Bureau.
At a regular meeting between those officials and journalists, one journalist—struggling with editorial decisions—requested that the Home Ministry specifically name writers and critics they wished excluded from contributing. Though authorities had not intended individual designations, this resulted in several people having their means of livelihood threatened.
This explanation came from an official at the Home Ministry’s Censorship Section when Nakano Shigeharu and I went to inquire about the situation.
Those subjected to de facto writing bans at this time included writers Nakano Shigeharu and Miyamoto Yuriko, along with six or seven critics.
Some individuals at the Home Ministry immediately sent letters explaining their positions, to which officials responded they would take prompt measures.
Nakano and I resolved not to employ such methods.
I met with the chief of my probation surveillance office—the official monitoring me—and lodged a protest against both the unjust writing ban and deprivation of livelihood rights.

At that time, journalists and intellectuals still maintained the resolve to denounce the injustice of such suppression of speech. Criticism of the Home Ministry's attitude arose from all quarters. The probation surveillance office convened a discussion meeting by inviting literary professionals and officials from the Home Ministry's Censorship Section. How much direct effect this actually had remains unclear. Those summoned to the probation surveillance office would almost invariably fall silent. The moment anyone uttered a word, it would be 'observed' and ideologically evaluated, leaving everyone acting like fools who could only stare at each other's faces. On this occasion too, only those directly involved spoke up. In June of that year, Miyamoto's father passed away. Being barred from publishing works stripped me of economic stability and dealt a psychological blow. My days became restless. Around summer, my health deteriorated—I suffered night sweats and developed a low-grade fever. Miyamoto, who had contracted tuberculosis in prison and once been critically ill, prescribed me a strict regimen for health recovery. The program mandated a 10 PM bedtime, three daily temperature checks, proper meals, and morning visits to Sugamo Detention Center. After three months of adhering to this routine, the low-grade fever subsided. In December, I developed appendicitis and underwent surgery at Keio University Hospital.

1939 (Showa 14)

March.
〔1〕Bungei Shunju requested a novel, citing signs that the publication ban imposed at the end of last year might be lifting.
It was just when Miyamoto's younger brother had been sent off to China.
I wrote a novel titled *That Year*.
I submitted it to Bungei Shunju for internal review.
Then it came back with red lines drawn through every line.
The unmarked portions contained phrases like "it ought to be" or "in the midst of doing so"—this could hardly be called coherent language.
Both the editor and I smiled wryly and put the manuscript on hold.
Around June—*Karatachi* for Bungei Shunju.
I wrote four or five pages of essays.
These were published.
In July, I wrote an essay for Chūō Kōron about Miyake Kaho and Ichiyō.
It was published.
Thus, the publication of works that had been banned without reason began to be printed even as no clear explanation for this emerged.
I resolved to write as much as I could while I was able.
I began serializing in Bungei a work exploring the movement of Japanese literature from the Meiji era to the present and the path women writers have traversed, including the novels *Sugigaki* (Chūō Kōron), *Yabu no Uguisu*, *Seifū Yuruyuru to Fukiitotte*, and *Mijikai Tsubasa*.
That year, as the war progressed, an irresponsible boom dubbed "military inflation" arose in the Japanese economy centered on military production.
Even terms like "inflation-driven publishing" and "inflation-driven writers" came into use.
However, the substance of literature continued on a downward trajectory.
The mobilization of writers and literature for war purposes grew increasingly intense, with the "Literary Artists Association" becoming the "Literary Patriotism Association," while certain writers actively became war correspondents and went to China.

It was only natural that no literature worthy of humanity could emerge from those who turned a blind eye to both the aggressive imperialist nature of Japan’s war and the reality where the Public Security Preservation Law prohibited all citizens from rational thought and speech to sustain that war—even if they had marched through China alongside the military.
A sentiment that sought literature's essential qualities grew simultaneously more urgent.
This year came to be called women writers' era of flourishing, for while male writers were swept along by militaristic social currents and propagated insincere full-length novels, women writers—constrained by narrower social engagement yet steadfast in guarding their modest lives and artistic domains—were recognized as having demonstrated a fragile thread of artistry.
Works like *Tsuzurikata Kyōshitsu* (Composition Classroom) and *Kojima no Haru* (Spring on the Island)—amateur writings disparaged as "women's and children's literature"—found their authenticity acknowledged.
But soon even literature's last pebble-like truths were crushed beneath war mobilization's surging tide, as women writers too began moving north and south with invasion's advancing waves.

Writings

March.

That year.
(Novel)

September.
*Sugigaki*.

(Novel) This Early Winter.
(Essay)

Mistake.
([Essay])

November.
On Bashō.
(Writer's Critique)

December.
*Vestiges*.
(Novel) *Plaza*.
(Novel)

Book.
Spirit Toward Tomorrow.
(Jitsugyō no Nihonsha) The fourth Sunday of March.
(Kinsei[dō])

1940 (Showa 15)

The extent to which a military, suffocating atmosphere had permeated Japan’s domestic sphere this year becomes poignantly clear when one reads the novel *Morning Wind*, written in [October] of that year.
As daily life grounded in human reason and natural emotion had been eroding, literature was increasingly losing its humanity.
All literature had to become war-propagating literature, but because war itself was inhuman in essence, anything written by any war correspondent writer failed to fully utilize their literary capabilities and extinguished even the humanity of those individuals.
The so-called pure literati—stalled by the I-novel and bound by their own constraints due to Japanese literature’s narrow social scope and inherent fragility—had clung to the hope that war’s cataclysmic scale and its attendant heroism might expand and revitalize their meager literary foundations. Yet this very expectation was increasingly proving itself to be nothing but illusion.
The novel *The Living Soldiers*—which Ishikawa Tatsuzō published in *Chūō Kōron* in March 1938 only to be banned—depicted through its theme how humanity becomes overwhelmed by war’s savagery.
The Information Bureau banned even such works on the grounds that issues of humanity still remained within them.
This meant that the Information Bureau and military had denied that all Japanese people were beings endowed with the capacity to think.

In Europe, German fascism’s invasion was unfolding on a massive scale.
The Nazi forces that had stormed into Warsaw in September of the previous year advanced into Norway in the spring of 1940, breached the Maginot Line in May, and had France surrender a month later.
The Second European War was gradually beginning to reach its climax.
Japan’s imperial system power and its military clique, tempted by the immediate victories of German fascism, began to dream of their ambitions.

Writings

January.

Morning Wind.
(Novel) Growth as Members of Society.
(Critique)

March.
An Old Fire.
(Novel)

May.
Young Leaves in the Night.
(Novel)

October.
Literature depicting the growth of young spirits.

(Critique) The Fourteen Years of Showa.
(Nihon Hyōron; Toward an Introduction to Japanese Literature)

November.
The Value of Generations.
(Critique)

December.
Facets of Contemporary Literature.
(Literary Criticism)

In addition, numerous literary reviews and writings on women's issues.

Book.
*Collection of Novels: Morning Wind* (Kawade Shobō)

1941 (Showa 16)

From January of that year, she was again prohibited from publishing works.
Japan's authorities had come to label all "autonomous" or "cultural" sentiments as unpatriotic rather than opposing the war.
All newspapers, radio broadcasts, and publications were mobilized for war propaganda they knew to be lies.
On December 8, they plunged into the Pacific War.
At dawn on December 8th, over a thousand people across Japan who were thought to hold opposing views on the war were arrested.
On December 9, I was detained at Komagome Police Station without explanation, and in March of the following year, while still under prosecutorial custody, was transferred to Sugamo Prison.
In late June, the investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department began.
It was an investigation that sought to force every action into being interpreted as communist propaganda.
When the prosecutor came in late June, I explained the circumstances of my interrogation, stated that completely fabricated records were being taken of me, and declared that if it went to trial, I would refute them.
The prosecutor left saying such an investigation was problematic.
After July 20th, due to that year's exceptional heat and the unsanitary conditions of the women's prison, she contracted heatstroke and lost consciousness.
She was carried home as someone not expected to survive.
Three days later, she gradually regained awareness.
However, having lost her sight and developed a speech impediment, it wasn't until late the following spring that she first visited Sugamo.
The kimono she wore then for the first time, and the weight of that emotion, remain unforgettable.
Among writers, I was the only one imprisoned that year, while Nakano Shigeharu underwent persistent investigations by the Metropolitan Police Department without detention.
Numerous critics, journalists, tanka poets, and haiku poets were also arrested.

Writings

That year saw the publication of the literary criticism collections *The Path of Literature* (Takayama Shoin) and *Our Lives: A Collection of Critiques for Women* (Kyōryoku Shuppansha).

1942 (Showa 17)

That year, she still had not recovered her health, her eyes remained unseeing, and she couldn’t read on her own.
In mid-October, she finally managed to write a short poem in large characters for Miyamoto’s birthday.
The state of being unable to read or even write letters myself compressed my emotions.
Unusually, that year she wrote nothing but several poems.
These were less literary works than appeals, than sighs—in other words, writings never meant to leave the writer’s desk.

Japan's military actions reached their peak of expansionist aggression with the occupations of Singapore, Burma, and Java.
Due to the pathological expansion of munitions industries, industrial consolidation began and controls over civilian daily necessities were implemented.
The Tojo Hideki Cabinet, formed in October of the previous year, during this period dreamed its most indulgent fantasies of fascist dictatorship.

1943 (Showa 18)

Regardless of my health condition, my works remained prohibited from publication.
I suffered financial hardship.

In 1940, Miyamoto Kenji became critically ill with tuberculosis but fortunately recovered.
That summer, she contracted typhus but managed to recover once more.

In the third year of the Pacific War, the illusion of Pearl Harbor was beginning to crumble under the weight of reality.
Japan's ruling powers intensified their suppression of war opponents and even imprisoned those who merely upheld liberal principles.
Words such as culture, freedom, peace, class, and aggression were erased from all publications.
Fanatical terminology such as "one hundred million hearts beating as one," "the eight corners of the world under one roof," "holy war," and "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" overflowed everywhere.
Literature was buried beneath these words.

Under these tense circumstances, Miyamoto’s trial began. At that time, Miyamoto was so exhausted that even when appearing in court, he couldn’t remain seated and had to lie down on the bench, yet the trial proceedings continued. The separate trials for the other comrades had already concluded. The courtroom held only defendant Miyamoto, with spectators consisting solely of the lawyer, his wife, and guards. People whose attention had been consumed by the war and who had been made to forget the existence of leftists would enter courtrooms to observe murder trials but ceased appearing at Public Security Preservation Law proceedings. People who understood the meaning of the Public Security Preservation Law and were interested in the trial feared the danger and did not appear.

Until the first-instance verdict in December of the following year, courtrooms holding these "public trials"—strangely sparse in attendees yet profoundly significant—continued to convene.

For me, throughout this trial period during which I learned so much, news from January 1943—that Nazi forces ordered to defend Stalingrad to the last had vanished, that anti-fascist troops landing on Sicily secured victories leading to Mussolini’s resignation, that Italy surrendered—was received like shafts of bright light piercing through suffocating prison bars.
A powerful hope welled up—that fascism would not triumph.
Moreover, this joy was something absolutely forbidden to be expressed.
I spent my days shuttling between the courtroom and my brother’s household duties.

1944 (Showa 19)

In December of that year, Miyamoto’s first trial verdict was issued, and he alone among the related defendants received a life imprisonment sentence.
They immediately filed an appeal.
On the day the verdict was finalized, the presiding judge broke courtroom convention by reading the main text of the judgment first.
This fact revealed a reality that made anyone witnessing it feel this was not a proper application of the law.
Despite Miyamoto having argued—through over twenty sessions while enduring illness—about the meaning and factual basis of spy exposure with such persistence that one could aptly describe his efforts as “earnest,” the rationale in the verdict’s main text had been written using fabrications differing from reality, nearly ninety percent identical to the reasons for which Miyamoto had been indicted by the Prosecutor’s Office eleven years prior.
This fact made me truly grasp the essence of emperor-system fascist law.

The terror of air raids and the commotion of evacuations began across all of Japan.
In July, an announcement was made that all had died in battle on Saipan Island, and the true nature of the aggressive war began to be laid bare.
That month, the Tojo Cabinet resigned and the Koiso-Yonai cooperative cabinet was formed.
At the beginning of that year, a national mobilization was carried out, and it was decided to enlist those aged seventeen and above into military service.
Spasms heralding the impending catastrophe began to manifest.

My younger brother’s family evacuated.
I remained.

In August, Paris fell.
André Maurois’s *France Has Fallen* came to be widely read in Japan not long after this.
This book, mired in voyeuristic political gossip from salon circles, did not truly reflect France’s tragedy or its people’s anti-fascist struggle.

1945 (Showa 20)

On January 30, full-scale air raids began in Tokyo.
From then until [May], every part of Hongo Ward where I lived was continuously destroyed, and by [April], everything around Sugamo Prison had been reduced to scorched earth save for the detention center itself.
The morning after that air raid, I asked my housemate to check on the prison and learned only it remained standing.
Whenever air raids commenced, defendants under the Public Security Preservation Law who refused ideological conversion always had their cell doors firmly locked from outside.
The other defendants' cell locks were removed.
I rejoiced that Miyamoto had not "perished in an explosion."
In early [May], the Daishin'in rejected our appeal.

As a life imprisonment prisoner, Miyamoto was transferred to Abashiri Prison.

As a bizarre counterpoint to these air raids and Miyamoto’s transfer to Abashiri, news arrived on May 2 of Berlin’s fall, followed by Germany’s unconditional surrender.
How many people in Japan must have opened their morning newspapers with hearts pounding during those days.
The newspapers showed, with accompanying maps, the advancing routes of the Soviet and Allied forces closing in on Berlin.
The footsteps of the Nazi forces’ defeat, as they were steadily driven out across Northern France, were recorded.
The heroic struggle of Leningrad’s citizens; Moscow, which never fell in the end.
Each advancing victory of the democratic people resounded through life under Japan’s frenzied fascism.

In Japan, talk of a decisive homeland battle began to circulate.

Thinking of going to live in Abashiri, in July I went to my younger brother’s family’s evacuation site in Fukushima Prefecture.
By that time, the Tsugaru Strait ferries had already ceased operation.

On August 6, an atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima; on the 9th, one fell on Nagasaki.
Miyamoto’s younger brother Tatsuji, who had been conscripted in Hiroshima, was injured and died, but his body was never found.
On August 15 at noon, the Emperor announced Japan’s unconditional surrender over the radio.
The Potsdam Declaration was accepted.
Rapid disarmament was carried out.
On September [2], the surrender documents were signed aboard the Missouri.

On October 4, by order of the Allied General Headquarters, the abolition of the Public Security Preservation Law, the release of political prisoners, and freedom of speech, publication, and assembly were commanded.

On October 14, Miyamoto was released from Abashiri Prison and returned to Tokyo.
Activities were initiated among Tokuda Kyūichi and other comrades who had been released from preventive detention at Fuchu Prison.
The first issue of Akahata was published in pamphlet form.
For the first time in Japan, the Communist Party’s organ was legally published.
A party headquarters office was established in Yoyogi.
I also joined the party.

In December, on the tatami mats of the second-floor hall at this headquarters, the legal first—though in substance, the fourth—congress was held.
Over five hundred people gathered.
This congress was so small-scale that when the Sixth Congress was held two years later in 1947, one could not have anticipated the sight of several hundred delegates representing nearly 100,000 party members in attendance.
Yet the atmosphere among those people who had gathered after years of oppression and hardship was filled with deeply moving joy and fresh courage.

Japan’s working class now openly possessed its own political party.
Workers’ cultural creativity now had its own organizational foundation.
Standing upon new democratic principles, the Japan Democratic Culture League emerged as a coordinating body for various democratic cultural organizations.
As a collective for democratic literature, the New Japanese Literature Association was established.

In December, I went on a lecture tour to Matsue City, Yonago City, Osaka, Yamaguchi City, and other locations with Miyamoto.

In December, I wrote *Let Voices Rise* as a call for new democratic literature in Japan for the inaugural issue of New Japanese Literature.
I wrote *Yomo no Nagame* for modern literature.
It was primarily a review of Jules Romains' *The Seven Mysteries of Europe*, writing about how capitalist states' post-World War I investments in Nazis—motivated by fear of European socialism—became causes for immense tragedy, and about the lessons we should learn from how the "Men of Good Will" in Romains' work saw their noble intentions thwarted due to lacking rational methods.

1946 (Showa 21)

The turmoil and frenetic activity of disarming ultra-imperialist Japan and pursuing its democratization began. In the cultural sphere, initiatives were launched not only for new literary movements but also for democratizing radio and newspapers—media that had been most forcibly mobilized for war collaboration—and through GHQ cooperation, a broadcasting committee bringing together representatives from various civilian sectors was organized to reform Japan's radio system. I was selected as one of its members. Under the Potsdam Declaration, Japanese women obtained voting rights. Women's political and social enlightenment activities along with democratization efforts were simultaneously undertaken, leading to the formation of the Women's Democratic Club centered around female personal advisors to CIE, including Sata Ineko, Tsuboi Sakae, Yamamoto Yasue, and other women artists. Considerable time was allocated for its preparatory arrangements.

In March, as the general election approached, I wrote a compact book titled *Our Construction* to inform women in particular about the general social conditions.
I gave a radio broadcast explaining the Communist Party's significance as a political party of the people.
During the election period, I gave political speeches multiple times from the standpoint of a woman and a writer.
My conversational, lecture-style speeches were inherently different from so-called political speeches.

In August, Miyamoto and I participated as lecturers at the Asahi-sponsored Free University in the Iwate and Akita regions.

In September, I journeyed to attend a party conference in the Shikoku region.

This year saw struggles for democratization surge through every sphere of culture and production, cresting at their highest wave from October through early December.

At year's end, I presented a report titled "The 1946 Literary World and Literature" at the New Japanese Literature Association's second congress.

Writings

January.
Harumomo.

February.

*Handstand of Public and Private*
*Our Construction.*
*(Enlightenment for Women) "How to Think".*

June.
*On Good Faith.*

July.

From a Recollection.
Banshū Plain.
(Full-length novel)

August.
*The Green Fields Know No Bounds*

September.
*Wind-Knowing Grass.*
(First Installment of Serialization)

October.
Kotohira.
Modern Themes.
*Wind-Knowing Grass.*
(Second Installment)

November.
Postage Stamps.
Library.
*Wind-Knowing Grass.*
(Third Installment)

Books.
*Nobuko* (Part I).
(Bungei Shunjūsha) *Our Construction.*
(Jitsugyō no Nihonsha)

1947 (Showa 22)

From January to [August], she continued writing *Two Gardens* for Chūō Kōron.
This work served as a sequel to *Nobuko*, which she had written over twenty years prior, and could also be considered a history of the Japanese intelligentsia in a certain sense.
In October, she began writing *Signpost*, the sequel to *Two Gardens*, for *Prospect*.

During the first half of this year, she generally divided each month into three parts to handle three types of work: creative work, lectures, and attendance at assemblies. And during the [April] election, she went to Okayama. This schedule proved utterly unsustainable for my health. In July, due to overwork, her blood pressure rose and her vision became unstable. As a result, she rested for about three months.

In the latter half of the year, she discontinued all public lectures. She was also permitted to be absent from organizational meetings. This allocation of work focusing solely on novels continues today.

The 1947 Mainichi Publishing Culture Award was given to Banshū Plain and Wind-Knowing Grass.

Writings

January.
Two Gardens.
(Chūō Kōron) "A Writer's Experience."

March.
Politics and the Writer's Reality.
Fiction and Reality.

May.
The Literary World of 1946.
*Wind-Knowing Grass.*
(Bungei Shunjūsha)

June.
On True Charm.

October.
*Signpost.*
(Serialized in Prospect)

November.
*A Midsummer Night's Dream.*
*Desdemona’s Handkerchief.*

Books.
*Nobuko* (Part II).
(Bungei Shunjūsha) *Banshū Plain.*
(Kawade Shobō) *Writers and Works.*
(Yamane Shoten)

*Poor People's Group.*
(Shin Kō Shuppansha) *Let Voices Rise.*
(Kaihōsha) *On Happiness.*
(Yūkeisha)

Miyamoto Yuriko Selected Works Volume 1, Volume 3.
(Aki Shobō)

New Women and Life.
(Democratic Cultural League) Women Who Lived in Truth.
(Sōseisha) Women and Literature.
(Jitsugyō no Nihonsha)

1948 (Shōwa 23)

The central piece of writing was the novel *Signpost*.
In the field of democratic literature, issues concerning collaborative progress between criticism and creative work arose since late last year, while among workers' literary circles, questions regarding the re-examination of realism also emerged.
These literary issues were intertwined with both the danger of Japanese fascism that had gradually surfaced since last April and the recent phenomenon of war provocations.
She wrote the critical essay "Two Wheels" on the issue of collaborative improvement between criticism and creative work in the March issue of Shin Nihon Bungaku.
In order to combat war provocations and secure peace, it became clear that all cultural figures, writers, and artists needed to form joint organizations and collaborate with working-class groups.
In addition to novels, she wrote "Stevedoring for Peace" (Fujin Kōron), "The Discretion of the Century" (Kaizō), and about new developments in "The Internationality of Japanese Women" in Joseisen.

Books.

Miyamoto Yuriko Selected Works Volume 4, Volume 5.
(Aki Shobō) *Two Gardens.*
(Chūō Kōron-sha) *Women's History.*
(Fujin Minshu Kurabu) Traces of Women's Shoes.
(Takashimaya Shuppanbu) *Signpost* (Part I).
(Chikuma Shobō)

[October 1948]