翔ぶが如く 七

翔ぶが如く #7

by Ryōtarō Shiba

熊本、萩における士族の蜂起をただちに鎮圧した政府は、鹿児島への警戒を怠らなかった。ことに大警視・川路利良の鹿児島私学校に対する牽制はすさまじい。川路の命を受けた密偵が西郷の暗殺を図っているという風聞が私学校に伝わった。明治十年二月六日、私学校本局では対政府挙兵の決議がなされた。大久保利通の衝撃は大きかった――。

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Ryōtarō Shiba (司馬 遼太郎) born Teiichi Fukuda (福田 定一 Fukuda Teiichi, August 7, 1923 – February 12, 1996) in Osaka, Japan, was a Japanese author best known for his novels about historical events in Japan and on the Northeast Asian sub-continent, as well as his historical and cultural essays pertaining to Japan and its relationship to the rest of the world.

Shiba studied Mongolian at the Osaka School of Foreign Languages (now the School of Foreign Studies at Osaka University) and began his career as a journalist with the Sankei Shimbun, one of Japan's major newspapers. After World War II Shiba began writing historical novels. The magazine Shukan Asahi printed Shiba's articles about his travels within Japan in a series that ran for 1,146 installments. Shiba received the Naoki Prize for the 1959 novel Fukuro no Shiro ("The Castle of an Owl"). In 1993 Shiba received the Government's Order of Cultural Merit. Shiba was a prolific author who frequently wrote about the dramatic change Japan went through during the late Edo and early Meiji periods. His most monumental works include Kunitori Monogatari (国盗り物語), Ryoma ga Yuku (竜馬がゆく; see below), Moeyo Ken, and Saka no ue no kumo (坂の上の雲), all of which have spawned dramatizations, most notably Taiga dramas aired in hour-long segments over a full year on NHK television. He also wrote numerous essays that were published in collections, one of which—Kaidō wo Yuku—is a multi-volume journal-like work covering his travels across Japan and around the world. Shiba is widely appreciated for the originality of his analyses of historical events, and many people in Japan have read at least one of his works.

Several of Shiba's works have been translated into English, including his fictionalized biographies of Kukai (Kukai the Universal: Scenes from His Life, 2003) and Tokugawa Yoshinobu (The Last Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 2004), as well as The Tatar Whirlwind: A Novel of Seventeenth-Century East Asia (2007).

(from Wikipedia)

Alternative Names:

Fukuda, Teiichi
Ryotaro, Shiba
Shiba, Ryoutarou
Ryoutarou, Shiba
Sima, Liaotailang
司馬遼太郎
司马辽太郎
Shiba, Rëotaro
Шиба, Рёотаро
司马辽太郎
司馬, 遼太郎
司馬遼太郎
司場遼太郎