Award-Winning Japanese Poet Shuntaro Tanikawa Dies at 92; Also Translated Mother Goose, ‘Peanuts’ Over Long Career (UPDATE 1)

Yomiuri Shimbun

10:59 JST, November 19, 2024 (updated at 16:00 JST)

Modern Japanese poet and translator Shuntaro Tanikawa, known for such gentle, approachable poems as “Nijuoku Konen no Kodoku” (Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude) and “Asa no Rire” (Morning Relay), died Nov. 13 of old age. He was 92.

Tanikawa was born in 1931 as the only son of the philosopher Tetsuzo. “Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude” was published when Tanikawa was 20 years old, after his father showed poet Tatsuji Miyoshi a notebook filled with poems that his son had jotted down during his school days at Toyotama High School.

Participating in poetry magazine “Kai” with colleagues including Makoto Ooka and Noriko Ibaragi, Tanikawa published a series of poetry collections, including “62 no Sonetto” (62 Sonnets+36) and “Ai ni Tsuite” (On Love).

Tanikawa wrote the theme song for the anime series “Astro Boy,” as well as radio drama scripts and plays.

He also wrote many poems for children using hiragana, including “Kotoba Asobi Uta” (Word Games: Nonsense Pictures and Rhymes) and “Warabe Uta” (Nursery Songs). His translation of Mother Goose nursery rhymes “Mother Goose no Uta” (The Songs of Mother Goose) won the Japan translation culture award.

Tanikawa is also known for his wide range of activities, including his long-term translation of the popular American comic strip “Peanuts,” and the use of “Morning Relay” in Japanese language textbooks and TV commercials.

Tanikawa won such awards as the Yomiuri Literature Prize for “Map of Days” in 1983, the Hanatsubaki Award for Contemporary Poetry for “Yoshinashi Uta” (Songs of Nonsense) in 1985, the first Hagiwara Sakutaro Prize for “Sekenshirazu” (The Naif) in 1993 and the first Ayukawa Nobuo Prize for “Tromso Collage” in 2010.

Tanikawa received the Japan Foundation Award in 2019 in recognition of his achievement in having his works translated into more than 20 languages, including English and Chinese.

Tanikawa was divorced three times. He was married at one point to children’s story writer Eriko Kishida and to painter Yoko Sano. His son, Kensaku, is a composer.