Maruyama Kaoru was a poet, novelist, essayist, and social critic from Oita Prefecture. After graduating from Kyoto University, he attended Tokyo University where he met Kajii Motojiro, Miyoshi Tatsuji, and Kuwabara Takeo and contributed to a magazine focusing on new trends of thought. After getting married in 1928, he turned his attention mainly to poetry and, having aspired to be a sailor earlier in his youth, wrote about ships journeying to foreign lands. His anthology Yonen (Childhood, 1934) garnered a literary award. Having spent his adolescence in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, Maruyama returned there in his later years. In 1994, the city of Toyohashi established the Maruyama Kaoru Prize in his honor.
Historical dictionary of modern Japanese literature and theater. J. Scott Miller. 2009.