Akiyuki Nosaka (野坂 昭如, Nosaka Akiyuki, October 10, 1930 – December 9, 2015) was a Japanese novelist, singer, lyricist, and member of the House of Councillors. As a broadcasting writer he used the name Yukio Aki (阿木 由紀夫, Aki Yukio) and his alias as a chanson singer was Claude Nosaka (クロード 野坂, Kurōdo Nosaka).
Akiyuki Nosaka | |
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Native name | 野坂 昭如 |
Born | (1930-10-10)October 10, 1930 Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan |
Died | December 9, 2015(2015-12-09) (aged 85) Tokyo, Japan |
Pen name | Yukio Aki |
Occupation | Novelist, singer, lyricist, and member of the House of Councillors |
Nationality | Japanese |
Period | 1950s–2015 |
Notable works | "Grave of the Fireflies" |
Relatives | Sukeyuki Nosaka |
Nosaka was born in Kamakura, Kanagawa, the son of Sukeyuki Nosaka, who was an official of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Construction.[1] Together with his sisters he grew up as an adopted child of a Harimaya family in Nada, Kobe, Hyōgo. His foster mother, Aiko, was his maternal aunt.[1] Nosaka is part of the "Generation of the Ashes" (Yakeato Sedai), which includes other writers like Kenzaburō Ōe and Makoto Oda.[2]
One of his sisters died as the result of malnutrition, and his adoptive father died during the 1945 bombing of Kobe in World War II. Another sister died of malnutrition in Fukui. Nosaka would later base his short story "Grave of the Fireflies" on these experiences.
Nosaka is well known for children's stories about war. Two of his short stories, "Grave of the Fireflies" and "American Hijiki", won the 58th Naoki Prize in 1967.[3] He is also noted for his preference for sexually explicit material and distinctive writing style, which has been likened to the comic-prose of the seventeenth-century Japanese writer Ihara Saikaku.[4] His novel The Pornographers was translated into English by Michael Gallagher and published in 1968. It was also adapted into a live-action film, The Pornographers, directed by Shōhei Imamura. In December 1978, Nosaka was credited for giving former rugby player-turned pro wrestler Susumu Hara his ring name, Ashura Hara.
He was elected to the Japanese Diet in 1983. Nosaka suffered a stroke in 2003 and although still affected by it, he kept writing a column for the daily Mainichi Shimbun.
On NHK's December 10, 2015 7:00 pm broadcast announcing Nosaka's death, a veteran journalist was quoted as saying Nosaka was notable for questioning what most people consider common sense, but Japan has now entered an era in which this is no longer possible.
The 1988 anime film Grave of the Fireflies, directed by Isao Takahata, was based on Nosaka's short story of the same name.[5]
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