Akira Suzuki (writer)

Akira Suzuki (鈴木 明 Suzuki Akira, 28 October 1929 – 22 July 2003) was the penname of Japanese non-fiction writer and freelance journalist Akio Imai.[1]

Life and career

He was born in Tokyo and graduated from the department of humanities at Rikkyo University. After serving as a reporter at the magazine “Shūkan Taimuzu”, he joined TBS where he did program scheduling work and was chief editor of the TBS-published magazine “Chōsa Jōhō”.[1][2] His book Nankin Daigyakusatsu No Maboroshi ("The Illusion of the Nanjing Massacre"), which he wrote while working at TBS, won the 4th Soichi Oya Nonfiction Award in 1973. Including the paperback edition it sold 200,000 copies.[3] Afterwards he left TBS and became a freelance writer.

He died of heart failure on 22 July 2003.[4]

The Illusion of the Nanjing Massacre

In this book Suzuki concludes that Harold Timperley who edited the book What War Means from his reports and articles on Japanese atrocities in China, was a secret propaganda agent advising the KMT.

He also denies the contest to kill 100 people using a sword.[5] All the incumbent members of the Soichi Oya Award nomination panel acknowledged the correctness of his argument in praising the work.

Although a lot of people who deny the Nanjing Massacre base their arguments off this book, Suzuki himself was only arguing over “the illusion of the Nanjing Massacre” and did not once assert that “the Nanjing Massacre is an illusion”. In a special edition of Shokun magazine, Suzuki argued that estimating the number of victims accurately would be impossible.[6] Though he has been classified as middle of the road in the debate on the massacre, the historian Tokushi Kasahara has criticized him as “a central member of the Nanjing denial faction”.[7]

Criticism

Some criticized Suzuki’s methods of collecting data and others said, regarding the Mufushan Massacre, a component of the Nanjing Massacre in which POWs were slaughtered, that he used fabricated interviews with officers who were never at the site of the killings. It was notably alleged that former officer Sadaharu Hirabayashi, who later became president of the veterans’ association Senyukai, made statements of dubious credibility to Suzuki and in addition was not actually present at Mufushan.

Works

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Suzuki Akira Kotobank
  2. Kotaro Sawaki「巻頭コラム ポーカーフェース 挽歌、ひとつ」『小説新潮 』2011年5月号、p.14
  3. Hiroaki Gonoi「『ノンフィクションの時代』の"貧しき現実"を徹底検証!」『噂の真相 』1987年4月号、p.66
  4. Mainichi Shimbun』 27 July 2003
  5. 「百人斬り訴訟」裁判記録集 ISBN 978-4-88656-309-5
  6. 永久保存版 - 三派合同 大アンケート,” Shokun!, February 2001, 167.
  7. Tokushi Kasahara『南京事件と日本人』p.163


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