Hanako

Mori Ogai (1862-1922), novelist, essayist, translator and one of the towering figures of the literary world in the Meiji and Taisho eras, was a master stylist. His prose style could not be farther away from the flowing, often seemingly random and excessively emotional, style of Miyazawa Kenji. It is controlled, concise, rational, formal, and chockablock with erudite Japanese and foreign historical references, the latter being chiefly classical Chinese and modern German. His style exerted an astounding influence on modern Japanese literature, inspiring an author born less than three years after his death, Mishima Yukio. Mishima, a master of clear and rich style in Japanese, took the pen directly from Ogai's hand.