Atsushi Nakajima
1909–1942
Biography
Atsushi Nakajima (中島敦, 1909–1942) was a Japanese novelist whose career was short but whose reputation grew after his death. He was born on 5 May 1909 and died on 4 December 1942, aged thirty-three, from an asthma that had troubled him for years. He graduated from the First Higher School and then from Tokyo Imperial University. While he kept writing, he taught at a girls' high school in Yokohama. He later worked in Palau under the South Seas government, as a clerk helping to compile textbooks, before he became a full-time writer.
Nakajima left fewer than twenty works, several of them unfinished. They draw on the history and legend of classical China, on the islands of the South Seas, on old tales and fables, and on his own family life. His prose is firm and close to the classical Chinese manner, with lyrical passages that stand out in it. Critics value its self-analysis and its doubts about existence. His last work, Li Ling (李陵), is the one most admired, and his reputation rose further after he died. The collected edition of his works published after his death won the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award.
The book on this site is The Moon over the Mountain (山月記, Sangetsuki). It first brought his name to the public when it appeared in the magazine Bungakukai, and it has been widely included in Japanese high-school textbooks since then. The story follows a former official who gives up his post to devote himself to poetry, fails at it, and is changed into a tiger. He then meets an old friend on a mountain road. Its clear plot and classical flavour make it a good first reading of his work.
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Books
山月記
by 中島敦
Li Zheng, a gifted Tang official who gave up his post to become a poet, has been turned into a tiger, and an old friend meets him by night on a mountain road. Nakajima Atsushi's story of 1942, adapted from a Chinese tale, makes the tiger's confession of pride and fear a classic…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.