Ibuse Masuji was born in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, as the second son of a prominent local landowner. When he was a middle-school student, Ibuse aspired to be a painter, and he is said to have asked the traditional Japanese painter Hashimoto Kansetsu to accept him as a disciple. At the urging of his older brother, Ibuse turned his attention to literature and in 1917 entered the preparatory course in the Department of Literature at Waseda University. Ibuse advanced to the French literature section of the department in 1919, making his initial attempts at writing fiction under the encouragement of a close friend named Aoki Nanpachi. In 1922, however, Aoki died, and an altercation with a professor resulted in Ibuse’s leaving the university.  

Ibuse made his literary debut in 1923 with the story Yūhei (Confinement), which was published in the coterie magazine Seiki (Century). Seven years later, he established himself as an important author with the publication of Yofuke to ume no hana (Midnight and Plum Blossoms), a collection containing the stories Sanshōuo (Salamander; first published in 1929 as a revised version of Yūhei) and Yane no ue no sawan (Sawan on the Roof, first published in 1929). Ibuse did not find the proletarian literature of the early Shōwa period much to his liking, tending instead to side with the aesthetically oriented modernists who (for a time) grouped themselves under the rubric Shinkōgeijutsu-ha (New Art School).

After the Manchurian Incident of 1931, traditional fiction experienced a resurgence in popularity and Ibuse’s individualistic style attracted widespread attention. Both Sazanami gunki (Ripples on the Water: A War Chronicle, 1930-1938) and Jon Manjirō no hyōryūki (John Manjirō, the Account of a Castaway, 1937) portray the lives of ordinary people caught up in the workings of fate; the latter story was awarded the Naoki Prize in 1938. In 1939 Ibuse published Tajinko-mura (Tajinko Village), which takes the form of a diary by a young policeman who describes the various minor crises he encounters on his job. 

Although Ibuse was conscripted by the army during the Second World War, he remained very much his own man. After the war ended, lingering feelings of sadness and resentment provided the basis for Yōhai taichō (The Captain Who Worshipped from Afar, 1950) and Kuroi ame (Black Rain, 1965). Other postwar stories continued to explore the everyday lives of ordinary people in various walks of life. Among these were Honjitsu kyūshin (Clinic Closed Today, 1949) and Ekimae ryokan (The Inn in Front of the Station, 1956). Ibuse’s interest in historical matters received further expression in Hyōmin Usaburō (Usaburō the Drifter, 1954 ) and Bushū hachigata-jō (The Bowl-Shaped Castle of Musashi, 1963). He also wrote a large number of essays and personally oriented autobiographical accounts such as Waseda no mori (The Waseda Forest, 1971) and Ogikubo fudoki (An Ogikubo Gazetteer, 1981).

Ibuse’s personality is reflected in the distinctive colloquialism of his style, and as a writer Ibuse demonstrates a remarkable ability to trace with understated humor and pathos the way everyday (and sometimes not-so-everyday) events have of working themselves out. His early aspiration to be a painter seems to have allowed him to regard life with a calm and observant eye. Indeed, it is Ibuse's light, descriptive touch even when treating such serious topics as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that has caused readers to react in strikingly different ways to his major work, Black Rain.

• Black Rain. Trans. John Bester. 1969. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994.
• Castaways: Two Short Novels. Trans. David Aylward and Anthony Liman. 1987. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1993.
• John Manjiro the Castaway: His Life and Adventures. Trans. Hisakazu Kaneko. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1956.
• Lieutenant Lookeast and Other Stories. Trans. John Bester. Tokyo: Kodansha International,1971.
• No Consultations Today and A Far-worshipping Commander. Trans. Edward Seidensticker and Glenn Shaw. Annotated by Nobuyuki Sakuraba. Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1964.
• Salamander and Other Stories. Trans. John Bester. 1981. Tokyo: Kodansha International,1994.
• Two Stories by Masuji Ibuse. Trans. Kiyoaki Nakao. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1970.
• Waves: Two Short Novels. Trans. David Aylward and  Anthony Liman. 1986. Tokyo: Kodansha International 1993.

• Cohn, Joel R. Studies in the Comic Spirit in Modern Japanese Fiction. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series 41. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.
• Kimball, Arthur G. Crisis and Identity in Contemporary Japanese Novels. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1972.
• Liman, Anthony V. A Critical Study of the Literary Style of Ibuse Masuji: As Sensitive As Waters. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992.
• Treat, John Whittier. Pools of Water, Pillars of Fire: The Literature of Ibuse Masuji. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988.
• Treat, John Whittier. Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995.
• Tsuruta, Kin'ya and Thomas E. Swann, eds. Approaches to the Modern Japanese Novel. Tokyo: Sophia University, 1976.

Author’s Calendar:  This is the page devoted to Ibuse at the site of the encyclopedic Author's Calendar.

Windows on Japanese Literature:  A series of introductory articles on six modern Japanese authors, including Ibuse, written by David Barnett Lurie (Assistant Professor of Japanese History and Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University) and originally published in the Mainichi Daily News from February to July 2000.