Hino Ashihei

(pen name of Tamai Katsunori). Born Jan. 25, 1907, in Wakamatsu, Fukuoka Prefecture; died Jan. 24, 1960. Japanese writer.

Hino served in the Japanese Army during the Chinese people’s national liberation war against the Japanese invaders (1937–45). In his books Bread and Soldiers (1938), Land and Soldiers (1938), and Flowers and Soldiers (1939), he depicted the struggle of life at the front and lauded feudal virtues and the power of the imperial army. He was deprived of the right to write for collaborating with militarists after the war, but the ban was lifted in 1950.

In the novel The Flowers and the Dragon (1953), Hino reflected on the events of the past and the errors of his generation. He portrayed the demoralization of the Japanese Army on the eve of military failure in the autobiographical novel In the Days of Revolution (1959).