Articles by Inoue Hisashi

Inoue Hisashi was born in 1934 in Yamagata Prefecture and educated at Sophia University in Tokyo. He worked as a scriptwriter and stage manager at the France Theater, a vaudeville theater in downtown Asakusa before becoming a writer for radio and television. For five years he wrote scripts for the popular puppet show "Hyokkori Hyotan Island." He debuted in the theater with "The Belly Button of the Japanese," following it with many highly successful plays such as "The Adventures of Dogen," "The Blind Master Yabuhara," "Makeup" and a series of plays about Japanese authors, Ichiyo Higuchi, Soseki Natsume and Osamu Dazai among them.

Inoue also wrote dozens of novels and books of collected essays and won many prizes, including the Naoki Prize and the prestigious Asahi Prize. In 1984 he founded Komatsuza, a theater troupe dedicated to the production of his work. He donated his private library of some 70,000 books to his hometown, where the "Writer's Block Library" was established. Kawanishi-machi Friendly Plaza is the location of the library and the "Citizens' School" founded under the auspices of Komatsuza with Inoue as principal.

He was chairman of the Japan Pen Club and artistic director of Komatsuza. Inoue Hisashi passed away on April 9, 2010, aged 75.