was the pen name of a modernist author, translator and literary critic active in Shōwa period Japan. His real name (written in the same kanji) was Ishikawa Kiyoshi. Early life Ishikawa was born in the Asakusa district of Tokyo as the son of a banker. He graduated from the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages (, later Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) with a degree in French literature. After graduation, he served a tour of duty in the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1922 to 1923, following which he was hired by Fukuoka University as a professor of French literature. His early career involved translating works such as Anatole France's Le lys rouge and author André Gide's L'Immoraliste into Japanese. The next year, he was resigned from the university due to controversy over his participation in student protest movements. He returned to Tokyo and began a bohemian existence, living out of cheap pensions while translating André Gide's Les Caves du Vatican and Molière's Le Misanthrope and Tartuffe. Literary career His literary career began in 1935, when he began writing a series of short stories, starting with Kajin (佳人, Lady), and Hinkyu mondo (貧窮 問答, Dialog on Poverty) in which he depicted the struggles of a solitary writer attempting to create a Parnassian fiction. In 1936 he won the fourth annual Akutagawa Prize for his story Fugen (普賢, The Bodhisattva). In early 1938, when Japan's war against China was at its height, Ishikawa published the brilliantly ironic Marusu no uta (マルス の 歌, Mars' Song), an antiwar story soon banned for fomenting antimilitary thought. His first novel, Hakubyo (白描, Plain Sketch, 1940) was a criticism of Stalinism. During the war years, he turned his attention to non-fiction, producing biographies on Mori Ōgai and Watanabe Kazan. However, his main interest was in the comic verses of the Tenmei era of the Edo period (狂歌, Kyoka), of which he became a master. He wrote poetry using the pen-name of . Along with the likes of Osamu Dazai, Sakaguchi Ango, and Oda Sakunosuke, Ishikawa was known as a member of the Buraiha (literally "Ruffian") tradition of anti-conventional literature. In the post-war period, he wrote Ogon Densetsu (黄金 伝説, Legend of Gold, 1946) and Yakeato no Iesu (焼跡 の イエス, Jesus in the Ashes, 1946). The author Abe Kobo became his pupil. He also continued his work in essays, which took two forms. In Isai hitsudan (夷斎