Life and Career
Kinoshita was born in Tokyo, son of a government official, Kinoshita Yahachiro, and his wife Sassa Mie. He attended school in the city until 1925 when his family moved back to their family home in Kumamoto in Kyusha. There he attended Kumomoto Prefectural Middle School and later went on to Kumamoto Fifth High School, where he received a degree equivalent to that of a western university. In 1936, he returned to Tokyo to attend the Imperial University and where he studied English literature. He graduated with a Masters Degree from University of Tokyo, in 1939 and continued in school, then pursuing Elizabethan Theater History.
Many of his plays were based on Japanese folk tales, but he also created works set in contemporary Japan that deal with social questions. His better-known works that have been translated into English include Twilight Crane (夕鶴, Yūzuru), 1949; Wind and Waves (風浪, Fūrō), 1947; Between God and Man (神と人とのあいだ, Kami to hito to no aida), 1972; and A Japanese Called Otto (オットーと呼ばれる日本人、Ottō to yobareru nihonjin), 1962, Kinoshita's rendering of the Sorge spy ring incident on the eve of World War Two.
In 1951 composer Ikuma Dan used Kinoshita's Twilight Crane as the libretto for his opera Yūzuru.
Read more about this topic: Junji Kinoshita
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