Uchida Roan

Uchida Roan was a Japanese writer, critic and translator of the Meiji period.

Uchida was born in Edo (Taitō Ward , Tokyo). He attended the Rikkyo School (Rikkyo University) and the Tokyo Technical School (Waseda University) to learn English, but without making any degree. He left school and did rough translations for his uncle Inoue Tsutomu, who worked as a translator in the editorial board of the Ministry of Culture (Mombu-shō). He made his literary debut with a lengthy critique of Yamada Byō's Natsukodachi, which he published in Iwamoto Yoshiharu 's journal Jogaku Zasshi in 1888.  A year later his first novel was published Fuji no ippon as a serial novel in Miyako no hana magazine. He was on friendly terms with Futabatei Shimei and Tsubouchi Shōyō and read the English translation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in the same year. Uchida presented the Japanese translation three years later in 1892 as a translation debut. A multitude of works by the writers Voltaire, Anderson, Dickens, Dumas, Zola, Sienkiewicz, Wilde followed . His translation of Tolstoy's "resurrection.”

In his own novels, he satirically criticized social ills, such as corruption, the sexual excesses of the upper class, etc., making him a leading writer of the "social novel" (社会小説, shakai shōsetsu) advanced. In 1901, Uchida began working as a consultant for the Maruzen bookstore chain, which a year later began stocking the Encyclopædia Britannica, which was then affiliated with the Times. In addition, Uchida published the PR magazine Gakutō for Maruzen. The translation of Tolstoy's "Ivan the Fool and His Brothers" was also published here in 1908.

His late work Omoidasu hitobito, published in 1925, is valued as a historical source and contemporary document of the literary world of the Meiji period, from the political novel (政治小説, seiji shōsetsu) to the death of Futabatei Shimei.

In February 1929, while writing, Uchida suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that led to aphasia and his death in June.