Genzaburo Yoshino
Before I begin to write a post about what I have learned from the book, we should first understand the history of the author who wrote the book and understand what their experience was like. I remember a similar saying which the podcaster Stephen West, host of Philosiphize this mentioned in his show “ For us to understand who Baruch De Spinoza was, we need to put ourselves in his shoes for a little bit.” [ Episode 33 Spinoza pt 1 ]
So today’s blog is about the man who created “How do you live” and why he created this book. The references I am going to use for this blog are from the book where the translator talks about the author's history and how the book came about, and some online resources which I will link below. Now, let’s delve into the life of Genzaburo Yoshino and the history of this book.
Genzaburo Yoshino was born on 9th April 1989 in Tokyo, Japan. He was the son of a stockbroker, but he wanted to be a lawyer. To pursue this goal, He enrolled at Tokyo Imperial University to study economics. However, his interest shifted, and he graduated with a degree in literature and philosophy. After he graduated, he worked in the army for two years before working at the Library of Tokyo, where he developed an interest in politics and began to explore socialism.
In 1925, Japan passed the Public Security Preservation Law, which made it a crime to speak out against the government or support anti-capitalist ideas. Therefore, a special police force called the TokkĹŤ, also known as the "thought police." was created. Their job was to watch people and arrest anyone who had different political beliefs.
As a consequence of that, Genzaburo Yoshino was arrested in 1931 and was imprisoned for 18 months for attending political meetings with socialists.
Following his release, he worked at Iwanami Shoten Publishers with his friend Yūzō Yamamoto, a Japanese novelist and playwright. He was tasked to write the last entry in a book series, which was called "The Japan Young People’s Library"
Hence, he wanted to write an ethics textbook for this series to teach future generations and younger people about the importance of the humanities and thinking for themselves. But YĹ«zĹŤ Yamamoto advised him to do a novel instead of writing an ethics textbook, because this sort of work and ideas were highly disliked by the TokkĹŤ and would lead him to be imprisoned again.
Taking his friend's advice, the book How Do You Live? was born. It's about a boy named Copper growing up in 1930s Japan, learning life lessons from his uncle and the world around him. The book went through a lot of changes and censorship. In 1942, it was pulled from shelves, and even though it came back in 1945, a lot of the heart and original message had been stripped away. Now we have the full version of the released book.
This is one of my favourite books because it is written so beautifully, and you can really feel how much Genzaburo Yoshino cared about what he believed in. He lived during a time when freedom of speech and independent thinking was not allowed, but that did not stop him. He spent the rest of his life advocating for peace and international cooperation.
References
How a once-banned Japanese children’s book became a classic – and the next Studio Ghibli film
Public Security Preservation Law
Translator notes [ Page 277 - 280 ]