Born in the Koishikawa district of Tokyo in 1879, author Kafū Nagai is known for such works as A Strange Tale from East of the River, Geisha in Rivalry, and The River Sumida, which depicts in detail the life in downtown Tokyo and its demimonde of the day.
While he is closely associated with Tokyo’s downtown, his home was burned to the ground in the bombing of Tokyo and he later left the city for a quieter life in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, favoring its quaint, Edo-style atmosphere. He lived there for the next decade or so until his death in 1959.
The revered writer’s study was preserved by Nagai’s family in Ichikawa, and in 2020 it was donated to the city, relocated and restored in a corner of the Ichikawa City Hall, with his actual bookshelf as well as faithful replicas of other pieces of furniture.
Famous Japanologist Donald Keene, who translated The River Sumida to English, once visited Kafū Nagai and described his study as a dirty place, so dusty that a cloud of dust rose up when he sat down. Nagai was a scruffy-looking old man, with a tooth missing and his fly open, but when he spoke his Japanese was, according to Keene, the most beautiful and clearest language that he had ever heard.
Nagai’s study at the Ichikawa City Hall is only a small display, not much of a tourist attraction, but an interesting exhibit nonetheless. Here you may see what Keene once observed.
