Kōichi Iijima

• Name — Kōichi Iijima • Born — 25 February 1930 • Birthplace — Okayama City • Died — 14 October 2013 • Place of death — Tokyo • Occupation — writer, university professor • Language — Japanese • Education — Tokyo University • Period — 1953-2013 • Movement — surrealism, modernism • Children — Yōichi Iijima

Born in Okayama City, Iijima graduated from the French Literature Department of Tokyo University. While in university he established together with, among others, Isamu Kurita the magazine Cahier. In 1956, he and Makoto Ōoka were among the founders of the Surrealism Research Society. In 1953, he published his first collection of poems, Tanin no sora ("Another person's sky"). In 2008, he was elected a member of the Japan Art Academy. He also worked as a professor at Meiji University and Kokugakuin University. He translated or wrote about Henri Barbusse, Antonin Artaud, Brassaï, Joan Miró i Ferrà, Henry Miller, Marcel Aymé, Guillaume Apollinaire, etc. He died on October 14, 2013, at a Tokyo hospital of malabsorption syndrome.

He is the father of architecture critic Yōichi Iijima.