Shirai Kyoji - Standard-bearer of popular literature

Shirai Kyoji - Standard-bearer of popular literature

Kyoji Shirai (1889-1980) was one of the leading authors who established Japanese popular literature from the Meiji to Showa periods. Born in Yokohama in 1889, his father was a high-ranking bureaucrat who was constantly transferred from one place to another, and he grew up in Ome, Kofu, Urawa, Hirosaki, and Yonago, experiencing the local climate and human characters. These experiences later became the basis for the wide range of settings and human depictions in his popular novels.

As a student at Waseda University, he was devoted to literature, but also worked as a translator, a reporter for a local newspaper, and a substitute teacher, and learned firsthand about the bright and dark sides of human society. The Taisho period (1912-1926) was a time of urban expansion, the rapid spread of newspaper and magazine culture, and a growing segment of the general public seeking entertainment. Shirai keenly read the demands of this era and aspired to create literature that would reach out to the hearts of the common people, advocating the "love of amusement magazines" that transcended the traditional framework of pure literature.

The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 was a turning point for many literary figures. While some cultural figures left Tokyo, Shirai, on the contrary, stressed the need for entertainment novels and serialized "Shin-Sen-Gumi" and "Fuji ni Tateki Kage" (A Shadow Standing on Fuji), a work of great historical significance. Against the backdrop of a devastated city where people were once again seeking culture, Shirai's works ushered in the golden age of newspaper novels, combining entertainment and historical romance. His works played a role in softening the dark mood of the early Showa period and giving readers the strength to live.

His literary activities were not limited to the mere supply of reading materials, but were also significant in that he, along with Naoki Sanjo and Edogawa Rampo, launched a movement called "popular literature," which sought to raise the consciousness of the common people to that of "the masses" as a cultural entity. Against the backdrop of the early Showa period, when the common people were socially positioned along with the rapid progress of modernization, Shirai's works went beyond mere entertainment and became established as literature with social significance.