Tokiko Kato--Eternal Poetry Spun Between Study and Song (1960s-2000s)

Tokiko Kato--Eternal Poetry Spun Between Study and Song (1960s-2000s)

Tokiko Kato made her debut while still a student at the University of Tokyo, and captured the hearts of young people during the student movement of the late 1960s with her academic intelligence and passionate singing voice. While she became a national singer with her masterpieces "Lullaby of Sleeping Alone" and "Shiretoko Tabijo," she also possessed both political and poetic sensibility, making her unique as a "diva of love and revolution. Her life also deepened through her encounter, struggle, and marriage to her husband Toshio Fujimoto, a leader of the Tokyo University Zenkyoto (All-Campus Joint Struggle), his imprisonment, and death from illness. Beyond the topic of her marriage in prison, Kato continued to carve his ideas into songs as a family member and as an expressive person, and she also became involved in the anti-nuclear and environmental movements while pursuing a life-long path of singing. His path is marked by the spirit of an era in which "learning," "love," an
d "struggle" intersected, and Kato's very existence is a testimony to postwar Japan.