UNFORGETTABLE PEOPLE (WARUREENU HITOBITO)

Abstract

Kunikida Doppo (1871-1908) was born in Chōshi, Chiba, as Kunikida Tetsuo. He was the illegitimate son of a samurai and a servant girl who worked at an inn. He was raised by his mother and her lawful husband. Despite receiving an irregular education, he entered the Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō, now Waseda University, to study English Literature, but didn’t get his degree. He converted to Christianity, had a failed marriage, remarried, worked as a journalist, editor and writer. He died in poverty of tuberculosis. Kunikida is considered one of the precursors of naturalism in Japan, but the lyrical style of his prose, his appreciation for Wordsworth’s poems and wonder before nature would classify him as a romantic. In “Unforgettable People” (“Wasureenu Hitobito”, 1898), Ōtsu, an unknown writer, describes people who he meets in circumstances that make them special to him, ordinary people who touch him deeply and who he is unable to forget.