Author · 1886–1942

萩原朔太郎Hagiwara Sakutarō · はぎわら さくたろう

Hagiwara Sakutarō was a Japanese poet from Maebashi in Gunma Prefecture. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern free verse in colloquial Japanese. His collections 月に吠える (Howling at the Moon) and 青猫 (Blue Cat) are known for their musical language and their moods of loneliness, unease and dreamlike perception. He was associated with the poet Murō Saisei and admired Kitahara Hakushū. He also wrote essays, aphorisms and criticism on poetry. "The Cats' Town" is one of his best-known prose works, and it shows the same interest in strange inner experience found in his poems.

猫町 — The Cats' Town

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"The Cats' Town" is a short prose work by the poet Hagiwara Sakutarō, part essay and part strange tale. The first-person narrator, tired of ordinary travel, looks for ways to escape the dull everyday world. His real interest is how a…