Korehito Kurahara

Korehito Kurahara was a Japanese Marxist literary critic. He wrote under the name Soichiro Furukawa.

Early life and education Kurahara was born in Tokyo on January 26, 1902. His father, Korehiro Kurahara, was a politician. Kurahara studied Russian at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies before going to the Soviet Union to study Russian literature in 1925. While living in Russia he worked as a special correspondent for the Miyako Shinbun.

Career Kurahara returned from Russia in 1926 and began writing for Bungei Sensen. He joined the proletarian literature movement and began translating Marxist theories from Russian to Japanese. The proletarian literature movement at the time was struggling to decide whether political and arts organizations associated with the movement should remain separate or merge. In 1928 Kurahara spearheaded the movement to merge many of the organizations into one: the . He was one of the founders of the New Japanese Literature Association in 1945. Despite being imprisoned for his beliefs, he also remained active in the Japanese Communist Party.

Kurahara died on January 25, 1991.