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Shiba Shirō (柴四郎), better known for his pen name Tōkai Sanshi (東海散士, Wanderer of the Eastern Sea), (21 June 1852 – 13 December 1922) was a famous political activist and novelist during the Meiji period. He was born into a samurai family and fought for domain of Aizu during the Boshin War from 1868 to 1869, after which the Aizu domain was abandoned. He was educated at different facilities in Japan and in the United States, and he served in the military during the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War. His major works include ''Strange Encounters with Beautiful Women'' (''Kajin no Kigū''), first serialized in 1885 and concluded in 1897. ==Biography== Shiba was a Japanese political novelist and journalist. He is best known for writing ''Strange Encounters with Beautiful Women'', which revolves around a Japanese man from Aizu who goes by the quasi-Chinese pseudonym of Tōkai Sanshi, a Chinese man, a Spanish woman named Yolanda and an Irish woman named Colleen.〔Sakaki, Atsuko. “Kajin no Kigū: The Meiji Political Novel and the Boundaries of Literature.” Monumenta Nipponica. Vol. 55, No.1, 2000, pp. 83–108, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2668387 p. 99〕 Born as the 4th son of Aizu samurai Shiba Satazō, Shiba Shirō was fourteen years old when the Aizu domain was attacked by the imperial forces during the civil war prior to the Meiji Restoration in 1868.〔 As a youth, Shiba fought for the failing Tokugawa shogunate.〔Taylor, K.W. and Whitmore, John, eds., Essays into Vietnamese Pasts. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Monographs, 1995, pp. 157–172.〕 During the siege of Aizu castle, his grandmother, mother, and two sisters committed suicide so that the men in the family could do battle without distractions. Aizu castle fell to the forces of the new Meiji government and the domain surrendered. After a period spent in captivity, Shiba studied at Toogijuku, a private academy in Hirosaki that trained talented young man for government service and attracted many former samurai from the northeastern domain.〔 From 1879 to 1885, Shiba Shirō received funds from the Iwasaki family to pursue further education in the United States.〔Shiba, Gorō, and Mahito Ishimitsu. Remembering Aizu: the Testament of Shiba Gorō. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.〕 He remained in America for seven years, first attending Pacific Business College in San Francisco, and then went to Boston, where he briefly studied at Harvard.〔Walthall, Anne, eds., The Human Tradition in Modern Japan. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. January 1, 2002. Print.〕 Finally, he went to Philadelphia and studied at the University of Pennsylvania from 1881 to 1885, obtaining a Bachelor of Finance from the Wharton School.〔 In 1885, shortly after his return from the United States, Shiba published the first two volumes of ''Kajin no kigū''. When the Satsuma Rebellion broke out in 1877, he was recruited by the Meiji government forces as a temporary officer.〔Duus, Peter and Hasegawa, Kenji. Rediscovering America: Japanese Perspectives on the American Century. University of California Press, 2011. Print.〕 Although Shiba’s time was increasingly taken up by government work and in subsequent years by the writing of ''Kajin no kigū'' which was published serially in eight parts between 1885 and 1897political activities. The book was so enthusiastically received that it not only became the most popular political novel in the Meiji era, it also continued to inspire readers decades after it was written.〔 In 1891, Shiba won a seat in the new national legislative assembly, to which he was reelected eight times.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tokai Sanshi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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