Takakura Teru

Born Apr. 14, 1891, in Kochi Prefecture, on the island of Honshu. Japanese writer. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Japan (1950–51).

Takakura studied at the University of Kyoto. He took part in the peasant movement of the second half of the 1920’s. His novella Peasant Song (1929) recounted the bitter fate of a peasant girl sold to a factory. Takakura dealt mainly with the tragic fate of the Japanese peasants and portrayed the emergence and development of their class consciousness, as seen in the short story “Song of a Pig” (Russian translation, 1953) and the novel The Wolf (1949; Russian translation, 1959).

Takakura’s historical novel The Waters of Hakone (1951; Russian translation, 1954) depicted the construction of an underground irrigation canal at Mount Hakone in the 17th century. Takakura’s work shows the influence of socialist realism.