The Poetry of Chuya Nakahara: Japan's Modernist Master (Free Bilingual Audio Recordings) - Hardcover

Chuya Nakahara (1907-1937) was the coddled eldest son of an army physician in western Honshu. When he was eight, the death of his brother Tsuguro spurred him to begin writing poetry. In Kyoto he encountered the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud and other French Symbolists, which he translated, and which profoundly influenced his own poetry. He soon moved to Tokyo and became active in literary circles. His first poetry collection, Goat Songs was published in 1932 but sold only fifty copies. His second collection, Songs of Bygone Days, was published in 1938, shortly after his death at age thirty from tuberculosis. His poems gained great acclaim after the war and were later published in a six-volume collection.