NEW YORK -- Inuhiko Yomota, one of the most well-read and prolific writers I know, was in town, and when I said I am working on a new book on the poet Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), he told me that his friend, Masahiko Nishi, has written a book arguing that Miyazawa expressed strong anticolonialism through his children's stories. Miyazawa is famous for both genres of poetry and story-telling in equal measure.

I saw at once why such an argument may be made. Miyazawa is unique among 20th century Japanese poets because of the tendency to turn him into "a saint." The hagiography started a mere several years after his death, but recent years have also seen the suggestion that he most likely would have ended up a supporter of Japan's militarism had he not died at age 37 -- a year after Japan "recognized" the government it had set up in Manchuria through military machinations.

But, first, why turn a poet into a saint or, more specifically, "an agriculture saint"? This is because of the view that Miyazawa worked himself to death for the peasants in an area prone to famine. In one of his poems, he prays to be strong so he may help them while himself subsisting on meager food. To add to the poignancy, when he wrote it he was in the grip of resurgent tuberculosis. The poem made him into a national icon.