Poet Shuji Terayama was born on December 10, 1935, in Aomori Prefecture. He also worked as a playwright, film director, and photographer.
After graduating from high school, he moved to Tokyo and enrolled in the Department of Japanese Language and Literature at Waseda University's School of Education. He began his career as a poet while still a student and won the Tanka Kenkyu Newcomer Award, sponsored by Tanka Kenkyusha. At age 19, he dropped out of university due to hospitalization for nephrosis. At age 20, he published his first play, "Forgotten Territory," and Tanikawa Shuntaro visited him after seeing the play, leading to a friendship between the two. In 1958, he published his first collection of poems, "Books in the Sky," and, upon Tanikawa's encouragement, began writing radio dramas.
In the 1960s, his full-length play, "Blood Sleeps Standing Up," was performed by the Shiki Theatre Company. He also expanded his horizons, writing film scripts and compiling the "Four Ladies" poetry collection label for young girls. At the age of 27, he married actress Eiko Kujo, and in 1967, they founded the theater group "Tenjo Sajiki." Other members at the time of its founding included Tadanori Yokoo and Yutaka Higashi, sparking a small theater boom in the 1970s. Other notable hits include Carmen Maki's "Sometimes Like a Motherless Child," for which he wrote the lyrics in 1969. Terayama's film "Death in the Countryside" (1974), which he directed and wrote, won the Agency for Cultural Affairs Arts Festival Encouragement New Artist Award and the Art Encouragement New Artist Award. He left behind a vast literary output and was a media darling, but he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1983 at the young age of 47. 2013 marks the 30th anniversary of his death, with various exhibitions dedicated to him.