Born into a samurai family in Matsuyama, Iyo (Ehime); his real name was Tsunenori.
He went to Tokyo to study.
Struck by an illness that made him cough blood, he took the name Shiki after the cuckoo said to sing until it bleeds. He befriended Natsume Sōseki.
Leaving university, he became a reporter for the newspaper Nippon and began reforming haiku.
He went to the Sino-Japanese War as a correspondent but fell gravely ill on the way back, staying with Sōseki at his lodgings in Matsuyama.
He backed the founding of the haiku magazine Hototogisu, spreading a new haiku based on sketching from life.
He wrote Letters to a Tanka Poet, turning also to the reform of tanka.
Though bedridden, he kept writing works such as A Six-Foot Sickbed, and died at his home in Negishi, Tokyo.
Akiyama SaneyukiMinakata KumagusuSaitō MokichiNatsume Sōseki
Futabatei ShimeiKawakami OtojirōKuroda SeikiNatsume SōsekiToyoda SakichiKōda RohanOzaki KōyōYokoyama Taikan
People of the Meiji period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.