EXCLUSIVE: 1989 Letter by Shiba Praising Fellow Writer Kaiko Found

Tokyo, April 24 (Jiji Press)–A letter written by the late Japanese historical novelist Ryotaro Shiba praising Takeshi Kaiko as one of Japan’s foremost 20th-century writers was recently found, Jiji Press has learned. Kaiko, an Akutagawa literary prize winner known for works such as “Hadaka no Osama” and “Kagayakeru Yami,” as well as a whiskey commercial and his coverage of the Vietnam War, died at 58 from esophageal cancer complicated by pneumonia some 36 years ago. Shiba sent the handwritten letter on two sheets of A3-sized paper in December 1989, soon after Kaiko’s death, to the late writer’s wife, poet Yoko Maki. The letter was found among Maki’s belongings by a member of staff at the Kaiko Takeshi Memorial Society, a public interest incorporated foundation located at the site of his former home in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward. It will be exhibited at the Kaiko Takeshi House Chigasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, from May 1. In the letter, Shiba expressed his condolences and noted Kaiko’s efforts to “modify the Japanese language,” saying, “He tried to create a writing style with a sharp, incisive tone, and even his daily speech came to reflect this.” “It must have been Takeshi Kaiko’s lifelong personal endeavor to render Japanese prose, a language characterized by its contemplative nature, into a style that digs into the earth as if with a shovel, much like the American prose of the 20th century,” the letter read. The passages echoed a eulogy Shiba would later deliver at Kaiko’s funeral in January 1990, in which he described the deceased author’s “rare writing style that could dig through the axis of the earth.” Shiba referred to Kaiko as “a fierce writer,” adding that Kaiko “wrote works that resembled sculptures carved from standing trees.” “He spoke only in his own language, the Kaiko language, in daily life,” the letter continued. “Ultimately, the way he spoke and the style itself became Takeshi Kaiko.” “It even seems to me that his use of the language made it slightly more difficult for him to maintain relations with his colleagues in the country, and that is why he preferred to walk on the margins and talk to minorities with rare cultures,” Shiba added. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]