Noma Hiroshi was a novelist, critic, and poet born in Kobe to devout Buddhist parents. In 1935, Noma graduated from Kyoto University, where he was interested in French symbolist poetry and took part in antiwar movements. He was drafted in 1941 and fought in China and the Philippines before being sent home after contracting malaria. In 1944, he joined the Communist Party (from which he was later expelled) and began his literary career with the novel Kurai e (1946; tr. Dark Pictures, 2000). His greatest literary accomplishment is the antiwar novel Shinku chitai (1952; tr. Zone of Emptiness, 1956), which garnered him the Mainichi Prize and was quickly translated into both English and French. He was also awarded the Tanizaki Jun’ichiro Prize in 1971.
Historical dictionary of modern Japanese literature and theater. J. Scott Miller. 2009.