Sankazu Kato - Sanka Kato

...A comic book writer and kyoka poet of the late Edo period. His surname was Kato, commonly known as Izumiya Genzo, and his other names were Torai Sanjin and Matsushita Sanwa, and his kyoka name was Shichigusa Shiyoshi. He was from Edo. He is said to have been from a samurai family and served a high-ranking family of the shogunate, but this is not certain, and there is a theory that he is the same person as Namake no Bakahito (Shimizu Enju), a kibyoshi writer of the same period. He became the brother-in-law of publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo, and married into a brothel in Honjo Matsui-cho (Chitose, Sumida Ward), but he was divorced and spent his later years in poverty. He first wrote the humorous novel Sankyoshoku (1783), and the year after that, his Watō Chinkei (Japanese and Chinese Mystery) drew attention for its depiction of the entertainment of Chinese people at the Maruyama pleasure quarters in Nagasaki, with lyrics in Chinese pronunciation and Japanese translations. His kibyōshi Kiruna no Nekarakane no Naruki (The Tree That Grows From Its Roots) (1785) was praised as a masterpiece among kibyōshi due to the palindrome in its title and its reversal of the reality that gold is made and then made, leading to suffering. His Tenka Ippon Kagami Umebachi (The Mirror of the World, Plum Blossom) (1789) was well-received for its satire of the Kansei Reforms.

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Kato Sanwa" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…江戸後期の戯作者，狂歌師。姓は加藤，通称和泉屋源蔵，別号唐来山人，松下井三和，狂歌号は質草少々（しちぐさしようしよう）。江戸の人。武士の家柄で幕府の高家に仕えたというが定かではなく，同時期の黄表紙作者奈蒔野馬乎人（なまけのばかひと）(志水燕十)と同一人物との説もある。版元蔦屋重三郎の義弟となり，本所松井町(墨田区千歳)の娼家に入婿したが，晩年は離縁され落魄のうちに終わった。最初，洒落本《三教色》(1783)を書き，翌々年の《和唐珍解（ほうとんちんけい）》が長崎丸山遊廓での唐人の遊興を描き，その詞を唐音でいわせ，日本語の訳を付けるという趣向で注目をひき，黄表紙《莫切自根金生木（きるなのねからかねのなるき）》(1785)が外題（げだい）の回文（かいぶん）の趣向と，金が出来て出来て苦しむという現実を逆転させた趣向によって黄表紙中の傑作と評価され，《天下一面鏡梅鉢》(1789)は寛政改革を風刺して評判になった。…

※「加藤参和」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報