SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Some writers, like Tanizaki Jun’ichiro¯ , led such eventful, varied and – perhaps most importantly – long lives, that simply to investigate the petty dramas of their literary careers can prove to be a source of fascination. This cannot be said of Kajii Motojiro¯. Born in 1901, he wrote only about 20 short stories before dying of tuberculosis in 1932, and is best known today in Japan and (if at all) in the West for his short story, ‘Remon’ (Lemon, 1925). Kajii’s personal history can briefly be stated. Growing up in Osaka, his first ambition was to become an engineer. It was only after he entered Kyoto’s Third Higher School (Sanko¯) that fellow students encouraged him to develop a shared interest in music and the arts, and he eventually turned to the writing of literature. In 1924, he went to study at Tokyo University, and ‘Lemon’ appeared the following year in Aozora, a coterie magazine (do¯jin zasshi ) edited by Kajii and his fellow students. However, just as he was beginning to flex his literary muscles, his TB took a turn for the worse. He was forced to leave Tokyo late in 1926 and convalesced for sixteen months in the hot spring resort of Yu¯gashima on the Izu Peninsula. After a brief return to Tokyo, deteriorating health forced him to return home to Osaka in 1928, where his family nursed him until his death.