Haruo Umezaki

Haruo Umezaki (梅崎 春生, Umezaki Haruo, February 15, 1915  – July 19, 1965) was a twentieth century Japanese writer of short stories about Japan during and after World War II.

Born in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Umezaki studied at the 5th High School of Kumamoto University, then at the Tokyo Imperial University where he majored in Japanese literature. He then worked at the same Tokyo University in the Faculty of Education Sciences (kyōiku).

Umezaki is part of the first generation of postwar writers of Japanese literature. He spent the end of World War II at the Japanese Navy Signals Corps base in Kagoshima Prefecture, an experience on which one of his most famous short stories, Sakurajima (1946), was based. After the war, he worked for the Sunao (素直) newspaper, led by Shin’ichi Eguchi (1914-1979), in which some of his short stories were published.

In 1954, he was awarded the Shinchō Award for his novel Suna Dokei, and the Naoki Prize for his novel Boroya No Shunjū (ボロ家の春秋).

• Sakurajima (桜島), 1947. Title based on the volcanic island of the same name. Published in English as part of two short anthologies of Japanese war stories: The Shadow of Sunrise: Selected Stories of Japan and the War (Kodansha International Ltd., Tokyo (1966), and The Catch and Other War Stories edited and introduced by Shoichi Sacki (Kodansha International, (1981), both of which include three other stories by Tamiki Hara, Fumiko Hayashi and Kenzaburō Ōe.
• Hi no hate (日の果て) (End of the Sun), 1947.
• Kuroi hana (黒い花) ( Black Flower ), 1950.
• Nise no Kisetsu (Season of forgery),
• Suna Dokei (The Hourglass),
• Boroya no shunjū (ボロ家の春秋) (Shanty Life), 1954.
• Genka (Illusion), 1965.