Factbook

Futabatei Shimei (1864-1909) learnt Russian with the aim of becoming a diplomat or international businessman, but a lack of employment options forced him to turn to writing and translation instead.

He was the first Japanese writer to use colloquial language in his writing, avoiding established writing styles, thereby writing what has been called, by academics and experts in Japanese literature, ‘Japan’s first modern novel’, Ukigumo, The Drifting Cloud, a hugely important milestone in the development of the canon of Japanese literature.

Translating Western novels forced many translators, including Shimei, to render the works they were translating in colloquial Japanese, which led to this new realistic style. And many considered traditional literary Japanese inefficient and old fashioned.

In the late 19^th century this new style, known as Write it Like It Is, Genbun Itchi, was widely adopted by translators, as it added flexibility and allowed for creative expression.

There were, however, ‘dissidents and rebels’ who bucked this emerging new trend, but its supporters wanted to try to fuse written and spoken Japanese together in a manner that would generate new European-style novels written in Japanese, such as The Drifting Cloud, the first of its type. 

Japanese women were said to have an advantage, according to some academics, as they had been trained to write letters, dairies and journals in spoken language, while men were historically always encouraged to write in a more formal style. 

Shimei, born Tatsunosuke Hasegawa, wrote in a colloquial style about the society around him in addition to translating Russian authors into Japanese, including Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883).

The Drifting Cloud was published in three volumes between 1887 and 1888 and was in fact never completed. Nevertheless, its realism, style and critique of growing materialism in Japan were highly influential. 

Shimei died in 1909 at the age of 45 from tuberculosis, on his return from Russia where he had been working as a special correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese national newspaper.