was a contemporary Japanese poet and literary critic, active in Shōwa period Japan, specializing in modernism, Dadaism and surrealism. He was also a noted painter of watercolors. Between 1960 and 1966, Nishiwaki received 7 nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Early life Nishiwaki was born in what is now part of the city of Ojiya in Niigata Prefecture, where his father was a banker. He came to Tokyo intending to become a painter and studied under the famous Fujishima Takeji and Kuroda Seiki but had to give up an artistic career due to his father’s sudden death. Instead, he enrolled in Keio University's Department of Economics, and also studied Latin, English, Greek, and German. Even as a student he demonstrated extraordinary language abilities, writing his thesis entirely in Latin. As a student, he was drawn to the works of Arthur Symons and Walter Pater, as well as the art works of French symbolism. Literary career Nishiwaki became interested in poetry while a student at Keio University, and contributed verses to the boy's magazine Shonen Sekai. He also began to write poetry in English. Nishiwaki expressed distaste for the romanticism and subjective modes which dominated modern Japanese poetry. After graduation, in April 1917, he was hired by The Japan Times newspaper, but left over a management dispute a few months later. He then found a position at the Bank of Japan in March 1918, but was forced to resign due to poor health. Through the introduction of a friend, he was then accepted at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 1919. Nishiwaki then accepted a teaching post at Keiō University in April 1920, while continuing to contribute English verses to various journals, and editing poetry magazines on the side. In 1922, Nishiwaki decided that he wanted to study in England, and took the steamer Kitano Maru from Kobe in 1922. However, he arrived too late to be admitted to a university, and spent a year in London at ease, meeting with authors including John Collier and Sherard Vines. He lived at the Hotel Rowland in Kensington in 1923, and visited Scotland in July. He was finally admitted to New College, Oxford in May 1924, enrolling in the honors course, and travelling to France and Switzerland in his free time. While at Oxford, over the next three years he was introduced to modernist literature and the works of James Joyce,