The Nine Magazines of Kodansha

The Nine Magazines of Kodansha (1934) is the autobiography of the Japanese publisher Seiji Noma, owner of the Kodan Company, publishing several million-selling magazines and a daily paper. Born in 1878, Noma grew up in that period of rapid transition which joined old and new Japan – the wearing of swords by samurai had only been banned two years before his birth. Hereditary social divisions were collapsing, and the young Noma seized his opportunities to make his way in the new Japan.