Junji Kinoshita

Junji Kinoshita (木下順二), (2 August 1914 – 30 October 2006), was perhaps the foremost playwright of modern drama in postwar Japan. He was also a translator and scholar of the plays of Shakespeare.

He was born in Tokyo and graduated from the University of Tokyo, where he majored in English literature. Many of his plays were based on Japanese folk tales, but he also created works set in contemporary Japan that deal with social questions. His better-known works that have been translated into English include Twilight Crane (夕鶴, Yūzuru), 1949; Wind and Waves (風浪, Fūrō), 1947; Between God and Man (神と人とのあいだ, Kami to hito to no aida), 1972; and A Japanese Called Otto (オットーと呼ばれる日本人、Ottō to yobareru nihonjin), 1962, Kinoshita's rendering of the Sorge spy ring incident on the eve of World War Two.

In 1951 composer Ikuma Dan used Kinoshita's Twilight Crane as the libretto for his opera Yūzuru.