Japanese · 1862–1922
Mori Rintarō qualified as a doctor at nineteen, the youngest in Japan's history, and was sent by the army to study hygiene in Germany from 1884 to 1888. He came back with a German lover who followed him to Tokyo and was sent home by his family, an episode he turned into the story The Dancing Girl. He rose to Surgeon General of the Imperial Army, took the losing side of a public argument about beriberi that cost thousands of soldiers' lives, and wrote at night. He translated Goethe, Ibsen, Hans Christian Andersen and Rilke into Japanese, edited literary journals, wrote historical fiction after the ritual suicide of General Nogi in 1912 changed what interested him, and stands with Sōseki as one of the two founders of modern Japanese literature. His gravestone, at his own instruction, carries only his name.