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Taiko Hirabayashi

ひらばやし たいこ

Hirabayashi Taiko

Pen Names: Tai（birth name）

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1905-10-03 （Nakasu Village, Suwa District, Nagano Prefecture (now Suwa, Nagano, Japan)）
Died
1972-02-17 （Keio University Hospital, Shinanomachi, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan） age 66
Nationality
Japan
Languages
Japanese

Career

Occupations
novelist
Active Years
1927-1972
Affiliations
Labor-Farmer Arts League
Memberships
Labor-Farmer Arts League, Japan Cultural Forum, Writers' Discussion Group
Influenced By
Russian literature, Proletarian literature movement, Yamamoto Torao (anarchist)
Influenced
Postwar women writers, Recipients of the Taiko Hirabayashi Literary Prize

Education

Nagano Prefectural Suwa Futaba High School (formerly Uesuwa Girls' High School)
Country: Japan
Graduated top of her class from the girls' higher school that later became Nagano Prefectural Suwa Futaba High School.

Awards

Women's Literary Scholars Award (1st)
1947
Work: Kauifu Onna (Such a Woman)
Organization: Women's Literary Scholars Award Committee
Result: 受賞
Women's Literary Award
1967
Work: Himitsu (Secret)
Organization: Women's Literary Award Committee
Result: 受賞
Japan Art Academy Prize and Imperial Prize (Onshi)
1972
Organization: Japan Art Academy
Result: 受賞（没後）

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

In the Treatment Room

1928 Short story collection

A short story collection drawing on experiences in Manchuria and itinerant life; contains stories with a proletarian perspective portraying harsh everyday realities.

losspovertyworking-class perspective

Kauifu Onna (Such a Woman)

1946 Novel/short novel

Depicts women's lives and social change in the immediate postwar period; awarded the Women's Literary Scholars Award (1947).

women's livespostwar society

Chitei no Uta (Song of the Underground)

1949 Novel

A novel dealing with the underworld and lower strata of society; explores violence, loneliness, and social alienation.

yakuza/underworldcrimeisolation
Adaptations
  • [film] Chitei no Uta (1956)
  • [film] Kantō Mushuku / 鈴木清順 (1963)

Desert Flower

1957 Novel (series / serialized)

Published 1955–1957; a longer work (or series) exploring women's lives and passions.

female independencelove and hardship

Secret

1967 Novel

Explores hidden emotions and conflicts in private life and relationships; won the 7th Women's Literary Award.

secrecyhuman relationshipsfemale psychology

Miyamoto Yuriko

1972 Biography / critical portrait

A biographical/critical work on Miyamoto Yuriko, published late in Hirabayashi's life.

biographyliterary-historical reflection

Bibliography

  • In the Treatment Room: Taiko Hirabayashi Short Stories (1928)
  • Naguru (To Strike) (1929)
  • Track-Laying Train (1929)
  • Cultivated Land (1930)
  • Comrades in the Soap Factory (1930)
  • Hanako's Marriage (1933)
  • Sorrowful Affection (1935)
  • Kauifu Onna (Such a Woman) (1946)
  • I Live (1947)
  • Life Experiments (1948)
  • Female Boss and Seven Other Stories (1949)
  • Selections from Taiko's Diary (1949)
  • Chitei no Uta (Song of the Underground) (1949)
  • Life Like Dew (1949)
  • The Honored Lady (1950)
  • Passionate Travelogue (1950)
  • Spring Awakening (1950)
  • A Woman Who Dreams (1950)
  • Flame of Love (1951)
  • The Rounds of a Couple (1952)
  • Love Trip (1953)
  • The Rose-Colored Girl (1953)
  • The Woman on the Run (1954)
  • The One Who Is Beaten (1956)
  • The Downcast Woman (1956)
  • A Woman Alone (1956)
  • Two Women (1956)
  • If There Is Love (1957)
  • Desert Flower (1957)
  • The Wife Sings (1957)
  • Woman of Flame (1958)
  • Hated Dialogues (1959)
  • Times of Love and Sorrow (1960)
  • Men (1960)
  • Autobiographical Friendships & Empirical Views on Writers (1960)
  • City of Passion (1960)
  • The Tragedy of Soviet Literature: Study on Pasternak (1960)
  • The Plump Saint (1960)
  • Barren (1962)
  • The Chaste Woman of the Present (1965)
  • Love and Illusion (1966)
  • Midday Sorcery (1967)
  • The Writer's Thread (1968)
  • Secret (1968)
  • Iron Lament (1969)
  • Hayashi Fumiko (1969)
  • Selected Works of Taiko Hirabayashi: Contemporary Women Writers (1972)
  • Miyamoto Yuriko (1972)
  • Collected Works of Taiko Hirabayashi (12 vols., 1976-1979)
  • Kodansha Literary Library: Such a Woman / In the Treatment Room (1996)
  • Taiko Hirabayashi Poison-Woman Short Stories (2006)

Adaptations

  • Chōsen (Challenge) (1930, Shochiku)
  • Chitei no Uta (film, 1956) / Kantō Mushuku (1963, based on Chitei no Uta)
  • Moe (Torment) (1964, Daiei)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
proletarian realismconservative/critical stance during her later 'tenkō' (political conversion) periodstrong, concise prose
Recurring Motifs
women's solitude and independencepoverty and laborviolence and the underworld (yakuza)itinerant life and wandering

Health

  • Serious illness in later years (unspecified)
    晩年
    Reportedly interfered with writing and activities; she underwent repeated treatment and hospitalization.
  • acute pneumonia
    1972年2月（死因）
    Died of acute pneumonia at Keio University Hospital.

Legacy

Taiko Hirabayashi is known for a trajectory from proletarian literature to postwar 'tenkō' writing; her works about women and the lower strata hold a place in postwar literary history. Posthumously awarded the Japan Art Academy Prize and Onshi Prize, and her bequest established the Taiko Hirabayashi Literary Prize.

Museums

  • Taiko Hirabayashi Memorial Museum Fukushima, Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

Archives

  • Hirabayashi Memorial Library (Suwa City Library local history corner; about 4,000 volumes donated by the family)

In Popular Culture

  • Taiko Hirabayashi Literary Prize (established by bequest)
  • Film adaptations of works (e.g., Chitei no Uta)

Quotes

  • As a writer, I can discern the difference between what actually happened and fiction. In other words, I felt a ring of truth in the 'confessions' that appeared in the Matsukawa case.
    Source: Statement after the Matsukawa case retrial verdict (1961) (1961)

Trivia

  • The Taiko Hirabayashi Literary Prize was established by her will.
  • A daughter born in Dalian (Manchuria) reportedly died 24 days after birth from malnutrition.
  • She married Jinnji Kobori in an arranged match in 1927 and divorced in 1955.
  • Posthumously awarded the Japan Art Academy Prize and the Onshi Prize in 1972.
  • The Taiko Hirabayashi Memorial Museum is located in Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture.