Background
Nakano was born in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, as the son of a carpenter.
中野 孝次
Nakano was born in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, as the son of a carpenter.
University of Tokyo.
He was a graduate of the German literature department of Tokyo University in 1950. From 1952 to 1981, he worked as a professor at Kokugakuin University. Nakano was noted for his translations of the works of Franz Kafka and Hans Erich Nossack into the Japanese language.
Other noteworthy works include Nigai Natsu (“Bitter Summer”, 1979) ad Kisetsu no owari (“The End of the Season”, 1980).
In 1976, he published a collection of essays, Buryugeru e no tabi (“Journey to Bruegel”), which won the Japan Essayist’s Club Award. He followed this with an autobiographical series of books: Mugi Uru hi ni (“When the Wheat Ripens”, 1978), which was awarded the Hirabayashi Taiko Literary Prize. Nakano won numerous literary awards in his career, cumulating with the Japan Art Academy Award in 2004.
