Shuntaro Tanikawa: Japan Author

… it is much easier to write poetry for children than it is to write poetry for adults.

Shuntaro Tanikawa

Shuntaro Tanikawa was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1931, the son of a philosopher and a concert pianist. As an only child, he found inspiration in his family's summer home in Karuizawa. The beauty of the plants and landscapes would find their way into his future works of literature. He began publishing his work as a teenager and has devoted much of his life to writing for children. He has created over 60 anthologies of poetry for children as well as picture books and translations of other authors' books including collections of Mother Goose rhymes. In his work, he seeks to educate children about the realities of life through the use of word play, rhythms of language, and simplicity of style.

He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature. Several of his collections, including his selected works, have been translated into English, and his Floating the River in Melancholy, translated by William I. Eliot and Kazuo Kawamura, won the American Book Award in 1989.

He won the Translation Culture Award of the Japan Society of Translators in 1975 for his translations of Mother Goose. He has also translated the works of children's authors Leo Lionni, Maurice Sendak, and John Burningham, to name a few. In 1995, he won the Asahi Prize in Japan for his achievements.

He has col-laborated several times with well-known lyricist Chris Mosdell, including creating a deck of cards created in the omikuji fortune telling tradition of Shinto shrines. He also wrote the lyrics to the theme song for the animated film, "Howl's Moving Castle."

Researcher Tian Yuan noted that a "poet of Shuntaro's caliber is a rare occurrence for any country." Shuntaro's abilities lie in the fact that he possesses a command of the Japanese language that enables him to select and manipulate simple and precise words to effectively communicate the thoughts about life that he wishes to impart to children.