Serisawa Kojiro

Born May 4, 1897, in Numazu. Japanese writer.

Serisawa graduated from the faculty of economics at the University of Tokyo in 1922 and continued his studies at the Sorbonne. He gained literary renown with his semiautobiographical short story “The Bourgeois” (1930). A central theme in Serisawa’s works is that of the vacillating intelligentsia, as seen in the short story “Before the Bridge” (1931) and the novella Overtaking Time (1931). Serisawa’s meditations about love and existence were contained in the novel Death in Paris (1942); his life in France was reflected in the novella Love, Intelligence, and Sadness (1961). In the epic novel Fate of Man (1962–73), Serisawa depicted the life of the old generation from the time of the Meiji Restoration to the present.