Shimazaki Toson

His friendship with essayist and translator Baba Kocho and Togawa Shukotsu at Meiji Gakuin, the private Protestant college in Tokyo, led to an interest in literature, and he began to contribute translations to Jogaku Zasshi.



In 1892 Toson began teaching at Meiji Jogakko (Meiji Girls School) and also became one of the founding members of Bungakukai (The Literary World) with Kitamura Tokoku and others. He contributed verse plays, fiction and critiques to the magazine. His first collection of poems Wakanashu (Collection of Young Herbs), published in 1897, brought him to the public eye and his subsequent poetry continued to keep him there.



With his first novel, Hakai (The Broken Commandment), published in 1906, a story of an outcast schoolteacher, considered the first Japanese naturalist novel, he established himself as a proponent of naturalism.



Subsequent works were somewhat autobiographical in nature. For some months in his youth, after a broken love affair, he had spent time at the Kigen-in retreat of Engakuji Temple in Kita Kamakura. He writes about this time in Haru (Spring). His masterpiece, Yoake no mae (Before the dawn), a historical novel, traces the growth of modern Japan through a fictionalized account of his father's life. His last work was Toho no Mon (East Gate).



Toson died of brain hemorrhage in 1943; he was 71.