At Yasuhara Yoshihiro (1908~1992)’s house in Tokyo, a letter which was sent to him from his close friend Nakahara Chuya – a poet who was born 1907 and died young in 1937, was found. In the letter, Yasuhara was suggested that “The Black Monk”, one of Russian author Anton Chekhov’s novels was a “needed being read in life” book.
“The Black Monk” was written about a man whose future was seemingly expected since he was still a child. He’d studied too hard so that he was suffered from a mental illness which made him being able to see hallucinations. As a precocious poet who had experienced a lot of setbacks in life, Chuya explained the environment where the main character had just wanted to find a “spiritual peace ending” but he hadn’t able to do that. Chuya also wrote, “This novel which depicted mystery of youth with such a sense of reality, is the only one over the world”.
The letter was written by fountain pen in 4 pages of manuscript paper with squares for 150 characters. The letter was said to have more than 4 pages but the remainder of it hasn’t been found yet.
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