Doppo Kunikida was a Japanese novelist during the Meiji period, noted as one of the inventors of Japanese naturalism.
Background
Doppo Kunikida was born on August 30, 1871 in Choshi, Chiba, Japan as Tetsuo Kunikida. While some doubt exists as to his biological father, Doppo was raised by his mother and her samurai-class husband. The family moved to Tokyo in 1874, but relocated to Yamaguchi prefecture and Doppo grew up in Iwakuni.
Education
Doppo Kunikida quit school in order to help support his family in 1888, but left for school in Tokyo in 1889. He grew up in southern Japan but went to Tokyo to enter Senmon Gakko (later Waseda University), but left it without graduating to become a teacher.
Career
Doppo Kunikida founded a literary magazine "Seinen bungaku" ("Literature for Youth") in 1892 and began his private diary "Azamukazaru no ki" ("An Honest Record", published after his death) in 1893, the same year he began teaching English, mathematics, and history in Saiki, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu.
He joined the news staff of the "Kokumin Shimbun newspaper" as a war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). His reports from the front during the First Sino-Japanese War, which were collected and re-published after his death as "Aitei Tsushin", ("Communiques to a Dear Brother") found high favor among the readers. During this period he also wrote poems but not so effectively.
In Tokyo he met his future wife Nobuko Sasaki. They married in November 1895. Doppo Kunikida's ensuing financial difficulties caused the pregnant Nobuko to divorce him after only five months. After disappointment in love with Nobuko Sasaki, in 1897 he met Katai Tayama who deeply influenced his life. Together they edited newspapers and magazines.
Kunikida remarried in 1898, to Haruko Enomoto, and published his first short-story collection, "Musashino" ("The Musashi Plain") in 1901, which portrayed people who fall behind the times.
However, Doppo Kunikida's style began to change. After a lot of disappointments, he at last met with success when his stories began attracting attention and in 1905 he came to be known for his naturalism. Although "Haru no Tori" ("Spring Birds"), written in 1904, reportedly reached the highest level of romanticism in his era, his later works, such as "Kyushi" ("A Poor Man's Death") and "Take no Kido" ("The Bamboo Gate"), Doppo Kunikida indicate that he was turning more towards naturalism over romanticism. A skilled short story writer, he had a precise and concise style. Besides poems and magazine articles he wrote more than 70 stories.
Following the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Doppo Kunikida started a publishing business that went bankrupt two years later. The same year he founded a magazine "Fujin Gaho".
Religion
When Doppo Kunikida was 21 years old, he was baptized by Uemura Masahisa and became a Christian. His religion and the poetry of William Wordsworth influenced his later writing style.