Yumeno Kyūsaku
Early life. Yumeno was born in Fukuoka city, Fukuoka prefecture as Sugiyama Naoki. His father, Sugiyama Shigemaru, was a major figure in the pre-war ultranationalist organization, the Genyōsha. After graduating from Shuyukan he attended the Literature Department at Keio University, but dropped out on orders from his father, and returned home to take care of the family farm. In 1926 he decided to become a Buddhist priest, but after a couple of years in the monastery, he returned home again as Sugiyama Yasumichi. By this time, he had developed a strong interest in the traditional Japanese drama  form of Noh, with its genre of ghost stories and supernatural events. He found employment as a freelance reporter for the "Kyushu Nippō" newspaper (which later became the "Nishinippon Shimbun"), while writing works of fiction on the side. Literary career. Kyūsaku's first success was a nursery tale "Shiraga Kozō" (White Hair Boy, 1922), which was largely ignored by the public. It was not until his first novella, "Ayakashi no Tsuzumi" (The Spirit Drum, 1924) in the literary magazine "Shin-Seinen", that his name became known. His subsequent works include "Binzume jigoku" (Hell in the Bottles, 1928), "Kori no hate  (End of the Ice, 1933), and his most significant novel Dogura Magura" (Dogra Magra, 1935), which is considered a precursor of modern Japanese science fiction and was adapted for a 1988 movie directed by Toshio Matsumoto and starring Shijaku Katsura II, Hideo Murota, and Yōji Matsuda. "Dogra Magra" exemplifies modern Japanese avant-garde gothic literature. In the story, the protagonist/narrator wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. He finds out that he was the subject of an experiment by a now-dead psychiatrist, and the doctors are working to bring back his memories. It is not clear whether he  was a psychotic killer or the victim of a strange psychological experiment, but it is told that he killed his mother and wife and that he inherited his psychotic tendencies from an insane ancestor. The novel is strongly influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis and, through Yumeno's contacts there, provides considerable historical insight into the development of the study of psychoanalysis at Kyushu Imperial University. Kyūsaku died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1936 while talking with a visitor at home. Works in translation. English translation. Short stories Novel Essay French translation. Novel Spanish translation. Short stories