Hosoi Wakizo

Born May 9, 1897, in Kaya, near Yosa, Kyoto Prefecture; died Aug. 18, 1925, in Tokyo. Japanese writer. One of the founders of Japanese proletarian literature.

Hosoi worked at textile factories and became active in the workers’ movement. He published his first works in 1922. Hosoi became famous for his novella The Sad Story of a Woman Worker (1925), which played a significant role in the development of “debunking literature” (bakuro bungaku), a revolutionary democratic trend that sought to attract public attention to the grievous situation of the workers. Hosoi also wrote three other books: The Eternal Bell, which is a collection of early short stories, plays, and sketches, and the novels The Slaves and The Factory (1925–26), which form an autobiographical two-part series.