Sei Ito

Sei Ito studied at Otaru University of Commerce and Hokkaido Otaru Choryo High school. The recorded working language is Japanese. Employment is recorded with Tokyo Institute of Technology, Hokkaido University and Waseda University. Distinctions recorded are Kikuchi Kan Prize, Japan Art Academy Prize, Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd class and Japanese Literature Grand Prix.

• Name — Sei Itō • Native Name — 伊藤 整 • Pen Name — Sei Itō • Birth Name — Hitoshi Itō • Born — 16 January 1905 • Birthplace — Matsumae, Hokkaidō, Japan • Died — 15 November 1969 • Place of death — Tokyo, Japan • Resting Place — Kodaira Cemetery, Tokyo, Japan • Occupation — Writer, translator • Movement — Modernism

Sei Itō was born in Matsumae, Hokkaidō, under the name of Hitoshi Itō. After graduating from Otaru Higher Commercial School (now Otaru University of Commerce), he moved to Tokyo and entered the Tokyo College of Commerce (now Hitotsubashi University), which he left without a graduate. In 1926, he debuted with the poetry collection Yukiakari no michi (lit. "Snow-lit road"). Together with writers like Junzaburō Nishiwaki, Riichi Yokomitsu and Tomoji Abe, Itō became an exponent of writers who introduced European Modernist literature into Japan in the literary journal Shi to shiron ("Poetry and poetic theory"), and kept aiming at what he termed "modernism" in his own writing throughout his life. Starting in 1931, he provided (together with Sadamu Masamatsu and Hisanori Tsuji) the first complete translation of James Joyce's Ulysses into Japanese in the 1930s. Itō's 1937 novel Streets of Fiendish Ghosts (Yūki no machi) showed the influence of Joyce's stream of consciousness technique, and his style became known as "Shin shinri shugi" ("School of new psychology"). In 1950, he caused controversy for his complete translation of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, which became the case of an obscenity trial. He was awarded the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1963 for his Nihon kindai bungaku taikei ("History of Japanese literary circles") and the Japan Art Academy Prize in 1969.

• 1926: Yukiakari no michi (poetry collection) • 1931: A Department Store Called M (M Hyakkaten, short story) • 1937: Streets of Fiendish Ghosts (Yūki no machi, novel) • 1940–41: Tokuno Goro no seikatsu to iken (novel) • 1946–48: Senkichi Narumi (novel) • 1948: Shōsetsu no hōhō (essay collection) • 1955–1969: Nihon kindai bungaku taikei

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