Kenji Nakagami

Birth : 1946-08-02, Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan

Death : 1992-08-12

History

Kenji Nakagami was a Japanese novelist and essayist. He is well known as the first, and so far the only, post-war Japanese writer to identify himself publicly as a Burakumin. His works depict the intense life-experiences of men and women struggling to survive in a Burakumin community in western Japan. His most celebrated novels include “Misaki” (The Cape), winner of the Akutagawa Prize in 1976, and “Karekinada” (The Sea of Withered Trees), winner of both the Mainichi and Geijutsu Literary Prizes in 1977. Nakagami died of kidney cancer at the age of 46. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Profile

Movies

The Millennial Rapture

Writer

Sennen no yuraku is set in a small community called “Roji” where Kenji Nakagami—one of the most famous novelists in Japan—drew the absurdity and passion of life since its inhabitants have been living and dying. There were beautiful men in “Roji” who struggled to live with the blood of the Nakamato Clan, blood called “noble yet unholy.” Oryu, a midwife, has watched all those men growing up, living and dying... She is now aging old and starts to talk with the dead men souls of the Nakamoto Clan...

The Egoists

Novel

Kazu attacks a bar in Kabukicho, a Tokyo red-light district, and flees to his hometown with abducts Machiko, a pole dancer he's been stuck on. They begin living together, but their happiness is short lived as their pasts torment them both.

Fire Festival

Writer

Tatsuo, a reverent lumberjack, seeks to disrupt plans to build a marine park on his family land, instead promoting his traditions in reactionary ways.

The Nineteen-Year-Old's Map

Novel

A 19-year-old newspaper delivery boy begins collecting information on the households in his neighborhood and keeping a journal of why he doesn't like them. Declaring himself a 'right-winger' and calling in bomb threats against the neighbors he doesn't like, the 19-year-old begins a war of psychological terror against the families in his neighborhood.

Eighteen Years, to the Sea

Novel

Kei and Atsuo were both enrolled in summer school. Kei was an honor student, and Atsuo was the polar opposite - but opposites attract. After school, the two head to the beach, where they find another student from their school competing against a local gang member, to see who is able to hold his breath longer under water. Overwhelmed by the excitement, Kei and Atsuo decide to try themselves.

The Woman with Red Hair

Original Story

Junko Miyashita plays a mysterious hitchhiker picked up by a brute of a construction worker named Kenzo who takes her back to his run-down and cramped apartment in a not so good part of town. Claiming that she is running away from an abusive husband, she shacks up with him. In a futile attempt to escape the bleak working class surroundings, the pair engage in an obsessive erotic relationship.

The Youth Killer

Story

Though his parents help him run the family business, Jun still feels persecuted by their love; when they bar him from meeting with his girlfriend, tensions increase.