Naohiro Amaya (天谷 直弘, Amaya Naohiro; 31 August 1925 – 30 August 1994) was a Japanese official who served as deputy…Naohiro Amaya (天谷 直弘, Amaya Naohiro; 31 August 1925 – 30 August 1994) was a Japanese official who served as deputy minister for international affairs at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry from 1979 to 1981. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1948 after taking politics courses. From 1948 to 1981 Amaya worked for the MITI. He served as the deputy minister from 1979 to 1981. Andrew Pollack of The New York Times stated that Amaya "was particularly noted for" his development of the MITI vision in moving Japanese industry from heavy industry to electronics and knowledge-oriented industries. Pollack added that Amaya "was instrumental in drawing up plans by which the Government aided the development of Japanese industry." In 1979, in order to resolve a trade dispute with the U.S. government, Amaya introduced voluntary export controls on automobiles. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune stated that after Amaya's retirement from the MITI, he "went on to become one of Japan's best-known commentators on economic issues." He became the executive director of the Dentsu Institute for Human Studies in 1987. He later became the chairperson and chief executive. He also served as a president of the Japan Economic Foundation (JEF). According to the MITI he died of lung cancer on Tuesday, 30 August 1994 at age 68. His death occurred in Tokyo. The following day would have been his 69th birthday.
Shigeharu Nakano (中野 重治, Nakano Shigeharu; 25 January 1902 – 24 August 1979) was a Japanese writer and Japanese…Shigeharu Nakano (中野 重治, Nakano Shigeharu; 25 January 1902 – 24 August 1979) was a Japanese writer and Japanese Communist Party (JCP) politician. Nakano was born in Maruoka, now part of Sakai, Fukui. In 1914, he enrolled in middle school in Fukui, Fukui, and attended high school in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa and Kanazawa, Ishikawa. In 1924, he entered the German literature department of the University of Tokyo. In 1931, he joined the Japanese Communist Party, for which he was arrested in 1934. Immediately after World War II, he rejoined the party and played a leading role in founding the JCP-affiliated literary society New Japanese Literature Association (Shin Nihon Bungakkai). In 1947, Nakano began a three-year term as elected representative to the government. In 1958, he was elected to the party's Central Committee, but in 1964 was expelled due to political conflicts. Nakano was one of the most prominent figures in the proletarian literary movement that dominated the Japanese literary field from mid 1920's to early 1930's. His autobiographical novels include Nami no aima (Between the Waves, 1930), Muragimo (In the Depths of the Heart, 1954), and Kō otsu hei tei (ABCD, 1965-1969). Nakano received the 1959 Yomiuri Prize for Nashi no hana. Following his arrest, he published a novella titled Shōsetsuka no kakenu shōsetsuka (The Novelist Who Can't Write a Novel, 1977) in which he offers glimpses of the authoritarian concerns surrounding deletion marks in writing. Three more of his other works, translated by Brett de Bary, include Mura no ie (The House in the Village, 1979), Goshaku no sake (Five Cups of Sake), and Hagi no monkakiya (The Crest-painter of Hagi).