Language Japanese Period 1953-2013 Name Koichi Iijima Alma mater University of Tokyo | Nationality Japan Children Yoichi Iijima Role Poet Literary movement Surrealism, Modernism | |
Born February 25, 1930
Okayama City ( 1930-02-25 ) Occupation writer, university professor Died October 14, 2013, Tokyo, Japan | ||
Kōichi Iijima (飯島耕一, Iijima Kōichi, February 25, 1930- October 14, 2013) was a Japanese poet, novelist, and translator. He was a member of the Japan Art Academy.
Born in Okayama City, Iijima graduated from the French Literature Department of Tokyo University. While in university he established together with, among others, Isamu Kurita the magazine Cahier. In 1956, he and Makoto Ōoka were among the founders of the Surrealism Research Society.
In 1953, he published his first collection of poems, Tanin no sora ("Another person's sky"). In 2008, he was elected a member of the Japan Art Academy. He also worked as a professor at Meiji University and Kokugakuin University. He translated or wrote about Henri Barbusse, Antonin Artaud, Brassaï, Joan Miró i Ferrà, Henry Miller, Marcel Aymé, Guillaume Apollinaire, etc.
He is the father of architecture critic Yōichi Iijima.
He died on October 14, 2013, at a Tokyo hospital of malabsorption syndrome.