Kōda Rohan
Japanese writer
Kōda Shigeyuki (幸田 成行; 23 July 1867, 30 July 1947), pen name Kōda Rohan (幸田 露伴; Japanese pronunciation: [koː.da (|) ɾoꜜ.haɴ]), was a Japanese author. His daughter, Aya Kōda, was also a noted author who often wrote about him.
Kōda wrote "The Icon of Liberty", also known as "The Buddha of Art" or "The Elegant Buddha", in 1889. A house in which Kōda lived, Kagyū-an (蝸牛庵; snail cottage), was rebuilt in 1972 by the Meiji Mura museum. Kōda was one of the first persons to be awarded the Order of Culture when it was established in 1937.
01Early life
Rohan was born in the Kanda District of Tokyo. He went to Hibiya High School and Aoyama Gakuin, but he did not graduate from both schools. He was the son of Kōda Shigenobu (1839?-1914) and Kōda Yu (1842?-1919), whose father was Kōda Ritei, a samurai official serving under the local daimyō. Rohan's childhood name was Tetsushirō Shigeyuki, "shirō" implying the fourth son.
02Notable short stories
- "Dewdrops" (1889)
- "Love Bodhisattva" (1889)
- "Encounter with a Skull" (1890)
- "A Sealed Letter" (1890)
- "The Five-Storied Pagoda" (1891) (translated into English as The Pagoda)
- "The Bearded Samurai"
03Novels
- The Whaler (1891)
- The Minute Storehouse of Life (unfinished)
04In fiction
- The 1960 Kon Ichikawa film Her Brother is adapted from an autobiographical work by Aya Koda. Consequently, the character of "Father" (played by Masayuki Mori) is based on Kōda Rohan.
- Kōda Rohan, along with many other historical figures from the Meiji Restoration, is a protagonist of the 1985 award-winning historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari by Aramata Hiroshi. In the first film adaptation of the novel, he was played by veteran actor Kōji Takahashi. In the animated adaptation he was voiced by Yūsaku Yara.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Kōda Rohan”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Rohan Kōda 1941.jpg by Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain
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