Shimaki Kensaku

Kensaku Shimaki (島木 健作) was the pen-name of a Japanese author in Showa period Japan. His real name was Asakura Kikuo (朝倉 菊雄).

Early life
Shimaki Kensaku was born in Sapporo, Hokkaidō in 1903. His father died when he was two years old, and he was raised by his mother. He was forced to drop out of elementary school in order to work to support his mother, and managed to continue his education by obtaining odd jobs at a local middle school and library.

Life as a political radical
Shimaki entered Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai in 1925, but due to extreme poverty was barely able to support himself, and he contracted tuberculosis. It was during this time that he was attracted to the radical labor movement. He left the university and joined a leftist agrarian movement in Shikoku. In 1927, this flirtation with socialism turned more radical when he signed on as active member of the Japan Communist Party.

When the communist movement was outlawed and forced underground, Shimaki was arrested in a nationwide round-up of communists (the March 15 Movement of 1928), and was forced to renounce his communist beliefs in order to be released from prison. However, it appears that his political renunciation was not sincere, since he was again arrested in 1929, this time under the auspices of the Peace Preservation Law. Shimaki remained imprisoned until 1932, when his tuberculosis worsened, and he was released for health reasons. He stayed for a while in Tokyo with his brother (who ran a used bookstore) and he attempted to study the English language.

Literary career
Although in his youth, Shimaki published a short-lived literary magazine called Kunugi no Mi ("Acorn", 1918), containing tanka poems and essays which he wrote under the pen-name of Asakura Tengai, his literary career did not being in earnest until after he was released from prison the second time.

In 1934, Shimaki published his first work Rai ("Leprosy"), a serialized novel which appeared in the magazine Bungaku Hyōron (Literary Review). It was based on his experiences while in prison, and was critically well received. Shimaki followed this work with Mōmoku ("Blindness") in the magazine Chuō Kōrōn ("Central Review"), which further established his position as a writer.

Shimaki lived in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture from 1937 to 1939, and was part of a social and literary circle which included Kawabata Yasunari, Kobayashi Hideo and Takami Jun. He traveled to Manchukuo in 1939. The success of his early works were followed in quick succession by Goku ("Prison"), Reimei ("Dawn"), Saiken ("Reconstruction") and Seikatsu no Tankyu ("The Quest for Life"); however, Shimaki's struggle against illness was a losing one. Shimaki died in 1945 at the relatively young age of 41. His grave is at the temple of Jochi-ji in Kamakura.