Nakayama is in between Narita And Haneda International Airport

Eiji Yoshikawa

Eiji Yoshikawa(1892 - 1962)
Eiji Yoshikawa was born in Yokohama city Kangawa prefecture in August 11th of 1892. His given name was Hidetsugu. In 1906, his family fortune declined, he dropped out elementary school and started working in a marchant. After that, he drifted from job to job. However Eiji Yoshikawa had dreamed to be a writer and loved to write, he often contributed to literary magazines when he was 14 years old. In 1910, he got hurts at a dockyard in Yokohama while he was working , then he decided to go to Tokyo to study to be a writer. So he had a very hard time in his early life.
Eiji Yoshikawa joined to the school of Kenkabo Inoue and studied. In 1914, his novel 'Enoshima Monogatari (The Story at Enoshima Island) won the first prize of Kodan Club. In 1922, he wrote Shinran Ki ( the life of Shinran, the founder of Jodoshinshu Sect in Buddhism), it was his first serial novel in Maiyu Shinbun. After he met the Great kanto Earthquake in 1923, he aspired to be a writer. In 1925, he used his psuedonym Eiji Yoshikawa in his story 'Kennann Jonann'. In 1926, he wrote Narutohicho, it became very popular novel.
Eiji Yoshikawa wrote his novels to be with common people's heart as his experiences in his early life, then his works were called that it is the literatur for common people, so he soon became popular. He left about 240 novels. His books has been loved among Japanese people so many his works has been adopted for movies and dramas. He wrote many historical novels such as 'Musashi Miyamoto', 'Kenshin Uesugi', 'The Heike Story', 'Shihon Taiheiki' and so on.
His words, 'All people except me are all my teachers.' and 'There is no night without morning coming next.' are not only his favorite mottoes, but also they give many poople strong power to live.
In 1960, Eiji Yoshikawa was awarded The Order of Culture. In September 7th of 1962, Eiji Yoshikawa passed away in his age 70.


参考
吉川英治記念館ホームページ
デジタル大辞林
ブリタニカ国際大百科
ウィッキペディア