一九〇四年に永井荷風が滞在した下宿先（米国ミシガン州カラマズー市）
Home in Kalamazoo, Michigan where NAGAI Kafū lived in 1904

Kalamazoo College just published an excellent article about the time that the famous Japanese writer NAGAI Kafū 永井荷風 spent in Kalamazoo in 1904 and 1905.

As Margaret DeRitter writes in this article, we at Western Michigan Univerisity’s Soga Japan Center are working to get a Michigan state historical marker placed in front of the house at 127 Elm Street, Kalamazoo, MI where he once lived.  It was there that he wrote the story “Atop the Hill”「岡の上」 included in his book American Stories 『あめりか物語』, soon after arriving in Kalamazoo in 1904.  (An English translation of this book was published in the year 2000.)

For a copy of a long article in Japanese about Kafū’s stay in Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo’s interest in Japan during that time, click here.  This article was first published in Mita bungaku 『三田文学』in 2006.

The Kalamazoo Gazette published the following article on Sunday, April 17, 2011 about the famous Japanese writer 永井荷風 who lived in Kalamazoo one hundred years ago.  The house is located at 127 Elm Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan.  I took the photos of the house in the year 2004.

A Japanese author’s Kalamazoo ties
By Margaret DeRitter

Kalamazoo and Japanese literary history share an interesting historical link From 1904 to 1905, a famous Japanese writer, Kafu Nagai, lived for nine months in a Kalamazoo house that still stands at 127 Elm St., said Jeffrey Angles, a Western Michigan University associate professor.

 “This guy is as famous in Japan as Hemingway is in America,” Angles said. “He’s so famous people have come to America to research his life.” Nagai wanted to travel to France, but his father wouldn’t let him so he came to the United States, where he spent four years, Angles said.

While in Kalamazoo, Nagai studied at Kalamazoo College and was interviewed by the Kalamazoo Gazette.

In Nagai’s book “American Stories,” one of the characters in the story “Atop the Hill” is based on a Japanese student who was studying at K-College, Angles said.

Angles is spearheading an effort by WMU’s Soga Japan Center to get a historical marker placed in front of the Elm Street house. The current owner is Kathleen Campbell, and she said she is supporting the plan.

People have sometimes mistaken a house at 121 Elm St. for Nagai’s home because the houses were numbered differently until the 1920s, Angles said. But with help from WMU archivist Sharon Carlson, Angles was able to set the record straight in an article he wrote for a Japanese journal in 2006.

Because of Nagai’s fame, Angles said, even Japanese newspapers took note. “There were headlines saying, ‘Japanese author’s house rediscovered in Kalamazoo.’”