Kobayashi Takiji

Born Oct. 13, 1903, on the island of Honshu; died Feb. 20, 1933, in Tokyo. Japanese writer. Member of the Communist Party of Japan from 1931. Son of a poor peasant.

Kobayashi’s early stories reflect the struggle of misfits against the world of profit (”Ken,” 1922; “They Were Hunted Down With Dogs,” 1926). The novella The Snow-screen Grove (1928) depicts the struggle of the tenant farmers of Hokkaido against the landlords. Toward the end of the 1920’s, Kobayashi became one of the leading representatives of proletarian literature. His most famous works are the novellas March 15th (1928), which deals with the steadfastness of the Communists and their devotion to the cause of the proletariat; The Absentee Landlord (1929), which describes the class solidarity of workers and peasants; and The Crab-Fishing Boat (1929), which deals with the cruel exploitation of Japanese fishermen. The novella A Life for the Party (1933), written after the author had gone underground, tells of the courageous Communist fighters and the heroic participants in the Japanese resistance to fascism during the Japanese aggression in China. Kobayashi was killed in the torture chambers of the secret police. The Communist Party of Japan has established a literary prize in the name of Kobayashi and Miyamoto Yuriko.