1903 – 1933

Born in Akita Prefecture, Kobayashi Takiji graduated from Otaru Higher Commercial School and subsequently worked at the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank. While still a student, he engaged in creative writing, influenced by Maxim Gorky and Hayama Yoshiki, and, drawn to Shiga Naoya, turned toward proletarian literature. In 1928, he published March 15, 1928 in Senki, the official magazine of the All-Japan Proletarian Artists’ League (NAP), and the following year established his reputation as a proletarian writer with The Crab Cannery Ship. He later wrote Fuzai Jinushi and Kōjō Saibo, while also serving as an officer of the Japan Proletarian Writers’ League and as a member of the Japanese Communist Party. In 1933, he was arrested by the special higher police and, at the age of 29, died under torture. His works, which depict the realities of poverty and class society with a sharp literary eye and question human dignity, continue to be read to this day.