A Brief Biography of Hiroshi Kawasaki


July 1, 2006
Hiroshi Kawasaki was born in Tokyo in 1930, the son of Kohei Kawasaki who worked for a newspaper company. In 1944, his family moved to Fukuoka in South Japan, escaping the war. It was during his high school years there that he started writing poems. In 1948, he entered the English literature department of a local college but had to give it up in the following year because of his father’s death.


Hiroshi Kawasaki moved alone to Tokyo in 1951 and started work as a day labourer at the American navy base camp located in Yokosuka. He met with Noriko Ibaragi for the first time in Tokyo Central Station in March 1953 and discussed launching a poetry magazine. In May, the first issue entitled Kai was launched and the poetry collective by the same name was established to include Shuntaro Tanikawa, Yujiro Funakoshi, Hiroshi Yoshino, Toshio Nakae, Tatsu Tomotake, Makoto Ooka, Erio Kishida, Seiichi Yoshikawa, Yasukichi Ootaki, Koichi Iijima as members. Kawaski’s first book of poetry, A Swan, was published in 1955 and his first poetry drama “About the Sea” was aired on radio.

After getting married in 1957, Kawasaki continued to work as a guard at the US Navy Yokosuka base camp until 1960, when he changed to another company. The following year, he quit his day job altogether and became a full-time writer, earning his living and supporting his wife and children by writing at first mostly for radio and later many different books for publication.

He remained living in Yokosuka with his wife and children until his death in 2004.




Yasuhiro Yotsumoto

MAYANK SRIVASTAVA
PGDM 1st SEM.
YEAR 2009-11