Kunikida, Doppo

(pen name of Tetsuo Kunikida). Born July 15, 1871, in Chiba Prefecture on the island of Honshu; died June 23, 1908, in Kanagawa Prefecture on Honshu. Japanese writer.

Kunikida started out as a romantic poet. His first verse collection, The Songs of the Solitary One (1897), contained reflections on nature and man. The lyrical essay “The Musashi Plain” (1901) reflected the author’s disillusionment with capitalist civilization and his longing to avoid the worldly life. His social criticism of existing conditions intensified in the antiwar stories “The Fatalist” (1902) and “The Express Issue” (1904). Kunikida’s later works are characterized by a deeper, more concrete realism and a humanistic protest against social evil—for example, the stories “A Pitiful Death” (1905) and “The Bamboo Gate” (1908).