Natsume Sōseki Prize
1 appearances
-
Edition 1 (1947) nominee
Shizue Masugi
ますぎ しずえ
Masugi Shizue
Profile
- Gender
- Female
- Born
- 1901-10-03 （Tōnka Village, Ina District, Fukui Prefecture (now Fukui City), Japan）
- Died
- 1955-06-29 （Koishikawa, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan (Tokyo University Hospital, Koishikawa branch)） age 53
- Nationality
- Japan
- Languages
- Japanese
- Religion
- Christianity Baptized in 1955
- Residence History
- Taichung, Taiwan → Osaka, Japan → Tokyo (Kojimachi, Kanda, Koishikawa, etc.), Japan → Tainan, Taiwan (visited/stayed in 1939)
Career
- Occupations
- novelist, nurse, journalist
- Active Years
- 1927-1955
- Affiliations
- Osaka Mainichi Shimbun (reporter), Yomiuri Shimbun (personal-advice columnist), Magazine 'Kagami' (publisher/editor, short-lived)
- Influenced By
- Saneatsu Mushakoji, Yō Masaoka, Chihei Nakamura, Kan Kikuchi
Education
| Institution | Faculty | Department | Degree | Period | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taichung High Girls' School (dropped out) | — | — | — | — | Taiwan (then part of Japan) |
| Nursing Training School, Taichung Hospital (Taiwan Governor-General's Office) | — | Nursing | — | 1914-1916 | Taiwan (then part of Japan) |
Taichung High Girls' School (dropped out)
Country:
Taiwan (then part of Japan)
Dropped out
Nursing Training School, Taichung Hospital (Taiwan Governor-General's Office)
Nursing
Period:
1914-1916
Year of Graduation:
1916
Country:
Taiwan (then part of Japan)
Graduated in 1916 from the nursing training school and worked at Taichung Hospital
Awards & Nominations
Works
Major Works
The Stationmaster's Young Wife
1927 short storyPublished in a magazine led by Saneatsu Mushakoji; a short story focusing on a young stationmaster's wife, portraying delicate tensions in love and interpersonal relationships.
lovefemale psychology
Heart of a Small Fish
1938 novelA principal early work with autobiographical elements based on the author's romantic experiences and position within the literary world.
autobiographical elementsfemale passion
The Woman Embracing Her Zōri
1939 novella/novelCenters on the complex emotions of a woman; emotionally depicts the conflicts faced by women in the prewar period.
women's conflictssociety vs. individual
Beautiful Person
1948 short fiction / novelOne of her postwar works, dealing with the discrepancy between appearance and inner life and questions of how women live.
appearance vs. inner selfwomen's ways of living
Bibliography
- Heart of a Small Fish (1938)
- The Woman Embracing Her Zōri (1939)
- Chick / Young Bird (1939)
- Happiness Thereafter (1940)
- Manyo Maiden (1940)
- Gate of Affection (1940; republished 1948)
- A Tragic Princess: Historical Tale (1940)
- Feathers That Cannot Fly (1940)
- A Message (1941)
- Southern Travelogue (1941)
- Sunlit and Fresh (1941)
- Hymn of Victory (1942)
- Three Oaths (1942)
- After Rokumeikan (1942)
- Wife (1942)
- Mother and Wife (1943)
- Three Days' Leave (1943)
- The One Who Is Loved (1946)
- Mirror and Wig (1947)
- Flower Resentment (1948)
- Beautiful Person (1948)
- Person of the Harem (1948)
- Calendar of Revenge (1948)
- The Girl in Evening Dress (1949)
- Sisters in the Storm (1949)
- Novel: Life Guidance (1951)
Translations by Author
- Profile of Europe (translation of Sam Welles, 1950)
Style & Themes
- Literary Style
- emotive modern proseI-novel / autobiographical elementspsychological depiction from a female perspective
- Recurring Motifs
- love and passionlonelinesswomen's fate and conflictsconflict between society and the individual
Health
-
lung cancer1950年代初頭 - 1955年Severely affected her late-career productivity and health; led to her death in 1955
Legacy
Shizue Masugi was an early 20th-century female novelist known for works focusing on female psychology and romantic relationships. Her private life—marked by scandals and liaisons with prominent literary figures—attracted attention and made her a controversial figure across prewar and postwar periods.
Archives
- National Diet Library Digital Collections / Digital Library of Japan (Collected works of Shizue Masugi)
- National Diet Library (Japan) — holdings
In Popular Culture
- Nobuko Yoshiya — 'Heart of a Small Fish: Shizue Masugi and I'
- Mariko Hayashi — 'On Women Writers' (includes passages on Masugi)
- Tatsuzō Ishikawa — 'Floating Flowers' (a novel modeled on Masugi)
Trivia
- There are conflicting reports about her birth year (1901 vs. 1905).
- She spent much of her childhood in Taiwan and worked as a nurse at Taichung Hospital.
- Debuted in the literary world in 1927 under the guidance of Saneatsu Mushakoji.
- Attended Queen Elizabeth II's coronation and the International PEN congress in 1953.