Fujimori Seikichi

Born Aug. 28, 1892, in Nagano Prefecture. Japanese writer and playwright.

Fujimori graduated from the department of German literature at the University of Tokyo in 1916. He was a prominent representative of the proletarian literature school of the 1920’s and 1930’s. He began publishing in 1914.

Fujimori’s earliest works were marked by a humanist spirit. The drama Crucified Mozaemon (1926) depicted a peasant uprising in feudal Japan, and the suicide of the writer Arishima Takeo was the subject of the drama The Sacrifice (1926). In 1932, Fujimori was arrested for giving financial support to the Communist Party of Japan. After his release he abandoned politics and wrote such historical works as the novel Watanabe Kazan (1936).

After World War II (1939–45), Fujimori again joined the democratic movement in literature. He is a member of the Society of Modern Japanese Literature (Shinnihon Bungakukai). Fujimori has also written the novels Sorrowful Love (1954) and An Unrecognized Genius (1965).