Background
Kyūya was born in what is now Kaga city, Ishikawa prefecture.
深田 久弥
Kyūya was born in what is now Kaga city, Ishikawa prefecture.
He attended the Fujishima High School, followed by the preparatory school for the Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied literature.
While a student at Tokyo University, he began writing short stories, and he also fell in love with the poet Kitabatake Yao. Shortly after they started living together, he published his first work. Orokko no musume. The work was well received by critics, emboldening him enough to quit school in 1930 and to devote his energies to writing.
In 1932, Fukada published his next work, Asunarao.
However, leading literary critics Kobayashi Hideo and Kawabata Yasunari soon realized that Asunarao and his previous work Orokko no musume were not Fukada"s works at all, but had been copy-edited (or to put it less charitably, plagiarized) from the writings of Kitabatake Yao, which nearly ended his credibility as a writer In March 1940, Fukada formally married Kitabatake Yao.
Partly due to the stigma he was unable to publish any works for over 10 years. Fukada was reconciled with fellow mountaineer Kobayashi Hideo, who encouraged him to write non-fiction works about mountains and mountaineering.
In 1968, Fukada was made vice-chairman of the Japan Mountaineering Association.
In 1966, and again in 1969-1970, he made long journeys in Central Asia of China and the Soviet Union, exploring the mountains of the Silk Road. Fukada died in March 1971 near the summit of Mount Kayagadake (1704 m) in Yamanashi prefecture of cerebrovascular disease. His grave is at the temple of Honko-ji in Daishoji-machi, Kaga city, Ishikawa prefecture.
Fukada was honored by the Japanese government with a commemorative postage stamp issued on 1 July 2003.