Spring in Gambier—next to the striking colors of fall, the blooming greens of spring can seem underwhelming, but their beauty was not lost on award-winning Japanese author Junzo Shono. First visiting Gambier in the late 1950s and again in 1978, Shono wrote page upon page describing the stunning views and quiet moments of life that make Gambier a home for so many. Drawing from his daily journal entries and later reflections, Shono published over 1,500 pages on the small village of Gambier over the course of four books—all in Japanese, and surely one of the most prolific accounts of this hill to date. His works on Gambier have never been translated into English, though there was an effort in 1979 to translate his first book, led by Kenyon’s twentieth President Philip H. Jordan. Despite this attempt, the works about Gambier by Junzo Shono remain untranslated, and Shono’s fond memories of his time at Kenyon College are inaccessible to those who could resonate with them most. For these reasons, I have translated the first three chapters of Shono’s second book about this village, Spring in Gambier, for my Modern Languages and Literatures Honors Project at Kenyon College.

Shono Junzo

Junzo Shono was born in Osaka, Japan in 1921 to parents Teiichi and Harue Shono, and grew up comfortably with six siblings. His first engagement with literature was actually a work of translation; while studying at the Osaka Foreign Language School, he first translated works by Charles Lamb, and later began translating other works for the school’s journal. He also began more deeply studying Japanese literature and was particularly fond of the works of the poet Shizuo Ito, who would later become a dear friend and mentor of his. Eventually, Shono would graduate with a degree in English and enter Kyushu University, though he was required to join the Japanese Imperial Navy in 1944 and graduated early. His service ended just a year later with the surrender of Japan in World War II, and he became a schoolteacher.

Shono’s literary career began to take off following his return to Japan, and he married his wife Chizuko Shono in 1946. He founded a short-lived literary journal Kōyō with some of his contemporaries in the same year, and Chizuko gave birth to their first daughter, Natsuko, in 1947; Shono’s oldest brother passed away shortly after. The birth of his daughter and the death of his brother are said to have influenced his work in that period significantly, and were the foundation of Shono’s practice of drawing from his own life to create his stories. His works began being published regularly in literary journals following the publication of his short story “Aibu,” at which point he quit his job as a teacher and began working for Asahi Broadcasting Corporation.

In 1954, Shono published a book of short stories, including the title piece “Evenings at the Poolside.” The same year, Shono was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for this collection, the most prestigious literary award in Japan, named for author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, who is acclaimed as the ‘father of the Japanese short story.’ Receiving this award meant that Shono could leave his job at the broadcasting company and focus on his literary career full time, resulting in the publication of one or two short stories a month for the next three years.

In 1957, Junzo Shono received a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation to spend a year on Kenyon College's hill. While he was at Kenyon, his door was always open to students and faculty to discuss life on the Hill and their experiences at the College, while he himself kept a daily diary describing his life in this small part of Ohio. He wrote about the weather, the soft change of the seasons, and the wildlife around Gambier (he was particularly interested in the racoons), as well as the small details of life at Kenyon College, such as church services, Halloween celebrations, and some of the local personalities. During his first year at Kenyon, he grew close to John Crowe Ransom and his family, Virgil Aldrich, Jim Lynch (the barber on Gaskin Avenue), Bruce Haywood, Mr. Brown from the bank, and most of all Minoo and June Adenwalla. After leaving Gambier in the fall of 1958, Shono published a book on his time in Ohio, Sojourn in Gambier (1959). He returned to Gambier for two weeks in the spring of 1978, and went on to publish three more books on Gambier, Sherry and Maple Leaves (1978), Spring in Gambier (1980), and Ohio Reminiscence (1991). Following the publication of Sojourn in Gambier, Japanese interest in the small town of Gambier, Ohio experienced a notable increase, and Kenyon College saw a good amount of Japanese tourism throughout the 1960s. Furthermore, Shono was given the opportunity to share his work with the Emperor of Japan, who requested copies of his book Sojourn in Gambier for himself, the Crown Prince, and Hitachinomiya Prince. In a postcard to Mr. Edward Harvey and his wife, Shono wrote, “Now Gambier, Ohio is, we hope, a well-known place in the Imperial Family.”

In 1960, Shono published his most-acclaimed short story, “Still Life,” for which he won the Seventh Shinchō Literary Prize. His attraction to the mundane is most evident in this work, which is composed of 18 “moments,” each unremarkable on their own, but together a masterful depiction of family life, its tragedies, and its perseverance. In 1963, Shono began teaching English at Waseda University, and published Evening Clouds the year after; he was later awarded the Seventeenth Yomiuri Literary Prize in 1966 for this book. “Still Life,” featured in the book Still Life and Other Stories (1992), and Evening Clouds (2000) are his most notable English translations of his work, both translated by Wayne P. Lammers.

Shono continued publishing at an impressive rate; he produced 18 books between 1964 and 1977, earning the Twentieth Arts Citation Prize for The Konno Textile Mill (1969). He published a children’s book following his oldest daughter’s marriage in 1972, and began experimenting with different styles of writing throughout the 1970s. He also participated in a Japanese Writer’s Delegation and was invited to visit China during this period. Sometime in the 1970s, Kuniko Weber, wife of Professor Emeritus of Classics Cliff Weber, read Sojourn in Gambier and became interested in meeting the author who'd written so much about Kenyon College and had introduced Gambier to Japan. Soon after, the couple paid a visit to the Shonos, which would eventually lead to the Shonos’ return to Gambier in the spring of 1978.

Shono was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters from Kenyon College in 1978 for the praise that Sojourn in Gambier received. He revisited this town on the hill for a brief period in April of that year. It was this visit, during which he spent time with old friends, ventured out to Amish towns, and enjoyed the unusually clear weather, that spurred him to write Spring in Gambier. Following his return to Kenyon College, Shono served as the Japanese editor for the Kenyon Review until 1988, and continued publishing short stories in Japan, still drawn to the everyday of family life. He published 33 works from 1978 to 2006, and passed away in 2009, fondly remembered by his friends and family both in Japan and in Gambier, Ohio.

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