About Shōhei Ōoka
Shōhei Ōoka (Japanese: 大岡 昇平, romanized: Ōoka Shōhei; March 6, 1909 – December 25, 1988) was a Japanese novelist, literary critic, and lecturer and translator of French literature who was active during the Shōwa period. Ōoka belongs to the group of postwar writers whose Pacific War experiences at home and abroad figure prominently in their works. Over his lifetime, he contributed short stories and critical essays to almost every literary magazine in Japan. His best-known novel, Nobi (野火, Fires on the Plain, 1951), was also well received by critics, and won the prestigious Yomiuri Prize in 1951. Kaei won the Shinchosha Literary Prize in 1961. In the late 1960s, he revisited the subject of the Pacific War and the Japanese defeat in the Philippines to produce the detailed historical novel Reite senki (レイテ戦記, "A Record of the Battle of Leyte", 1971). Along with translations and fiction, he also devoted himself to writing the critical biographies of Tominaga Taro and Nakahara Chūya, which won the Noma Literary Prize in 1974.
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