Background

Otohiko Kaga (born Sadataka Kogi) was born on April 22, 1929, in Tokyo, Japan.

Education

Around 5 or 6 years at Okubo Elementary School, Otohiko Kaga was obsessed with Shinchosha's complete collection of world literature, cultivating a foundation for becoming a long-length author. In April 1942, he entered Shinjuku High School. In April 1943, he entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. In September 1945, he returned to Shinjuku High School. In November of the same year, he transferred to the former Prefectural High School. In March 1949, he graduated from it. In April of the same year, he entered the University of Tokyo School of Medicine. He graduated from the University of Tokyo School of Medicine in March 1953. Otohiko Kaga graduated from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Medicine, where he got a Doctor of Medicine degree in psychiatry and criminology in 1960.

Career

Otohiko Kaga practiced psychiatry in Japan and France and taught psychology before becoming a full-time writer. In addition to his many works about literature and medicine, Kaga has produced collections of short stories, essays, and several novels. His prize-winning Ikari no nai fune was translated by Ian Hideo Levy as Riding the East Wind: A Novel of War and Peace. A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that “although Levy’s translation is sometimes stilted (particularly in rendering dialogue), the book delivers a powerful message about the consequences of war.”

His prize-winning Ikari no nai fune was translated by Ian Hideo Levy as Riding the East Wind: A Novel of War and Peace. A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that “although Levy’s translation is sometimes stilted (particularly in rendering dialogue), the book delivers a powerful message about the consequences of war.”

Riding the East Wind is a World War II tale that begins in the fall of 1941. Booklist reviewer Danise Hoover said Otohiko’s “wartime family saga expresses all the heartbreak and wicked irony that one might expect from the genre.” Japanese diplomat Saburo Kurushima, and his wife, Alice, an American, are enjoying their privileged life as the threat of war looms large. They have two daughters, Anna and Eri. Their son, Ken, is serving with the Japanese Army Air Corps. Saburo has returned from Germany, where he was required to sign a pact with Italy and Germany. Angered, he is ready to retire, but he is called upon for one last mission, to negotiate with the United States. The likelihood of an agreement is almost nonexistent. Tojo will make no concessions, and Japan will not meet U.S. demands that Japan withdraw from China. Tom Cooper wrote in Library Journal that “readers know what will happen, but they will still be gripped by the political intrigue and tales of the ongoing war.” In Washington, Saburo attempts to broker a peace agreement with Secretary of State Cordell Hull and first learns from Hull that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor during their negotiations on December 7, 1941, a plan about which Saburo had no knowledge.

The characters of Saburo and his family are fictionalized versions of the actual envoy, Saburo Kurusu, and his wife and children. Kurusu did travel to Washington weeks before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Some historians have argued that Kurusu was sent to the United States as a diversion while the Japanese planned their attack. Kaga portrays his character as a pacifist with an affection for America, who believed he could accomplish his mission of peace but was, in fact, being manipulated by the Japanese high command. In addition to the character of Saburo, Kaga includes a mix of fact-based and fictional characters in the novel. He provides an actual communique that was sent by Japan and the United States in conveying the tension that mounted between the two countries.

Washington Post Book World reviewer Kunio Francis Tanabe wrote that Kaga “tells Ken’s story poignantly - his training as a flight engineer and pilot, his friendships with fellow pilots, his romance with the daughter of a Swiss clergyman, and the occasional narrowminded villains who confront him and other members of the family. The atmosphere of the war years in Tokyo and Karuizawa is realistic, and the denouement, all too horribly true (I have read newspaper clipping about what happened to Kurusu’s son), is a heart- breaker.” Dianne Highbridge wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Kaga “claims a fictional territory that ranges across the Pacific.” Highbridge wrote that Kaga “draw his characters lightly, but with cumulative effect... Ken is at the emotional heart of the family and of the novel.” Highbridge concluded by calling Riding the East Wind, “above all an honest work - humane in intent, generous in spirit and movingly rendered.”

Achievements

• Otohiko Kaga is an outstanding Japanese author. His works are admired by critics and readers all over the world.

Works

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  • Riding the East Wind

    (In a saga set during World War II, Saburo - a pro-America...)

    1999
  • Gendai bungaku no hōhō 1990
  • La croix et l'épée 2016
  • Vento Leste 2014
  • Forest of happiness fourth part of the capital cloud 2012
  • ハンセン病文学全集 2002
  • Nagaiki jidai o ikiru 2014
  • Dostoevsky the novelist read 2006
  • Nogami Yayoko Short Collection 1998
  • Ōgai to Mokichi 1997
  • Ikite iru shinzō 1991
  • Aru shikeishū to no taiwa 1990
  • Sukētā warutsu 1987

Religion

In 1987 Otohiko Kaga converted to Catholicism at the age of 58 through the influence of Japanese author Shusaku Endo.

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 194: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, ... Motion Pictures, Television, & Other Fields
  2010