But when he was preparing to move to Tokyo, he became ill with spinal caries and, soon after, when Hisashi Inoue was 5 years old, he died at age 34.

[1] After suffering from child abuse at the hands of his stepfather, he was subsequently sent off to a Lasallian orphanage in Sendai, where he received a Christian baptism.

The experience of war helped shape Inoue’s own writing style, and fostered an anti-war perspective.

[2] Even before graduation, Inoue began his literary career by working as a stage manager and writing scripts for the Furansu-za striptease theater in Asakusa, Tokyo.

It was common to have a one-hour vaudeville performance before and between strip acts, and many famous actors, including Kiyoshi Atsumi started their careers in such an environment.

He wrote a semi-fictional account of his life during this period in Mokkinpotto Shi no Atoshimatsu ("The Fortunes of Father Mockinpott").

After graduation, he obtained a position as a script writer for a puppet drama Hyokkori Hyotanjima, which aired from April 1964 for a five-year period.

He first gained literary recognition for his satirical comic plays in the tradition of the Edo period gesaku genre.

Inoue has won a very large number of literary awards in the course of his career, including the 67th Naoki Prize in 1972 for his novel Tegusari Shinju ("Handcuffed Double Suicide").

[7] Another biographical work centered on Meiji period writer Ishikawa Takuboku, whom together with Higuchi Inoue had long admired.

His 2002 play Taiko tataite, fue fuite, based on the late years of writer Fumiko Hayashi,[8] received the Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award.

In 1984, the Writer's Block Library was opened in Kawanishi, Yamagata, thanks to Inoue's donation of his 100,000 volume book collection.

An outspoken pacifist, Inoue established a political group in support of the Constitution of Japan with Kenzaburō Ōe in 2004.

A heavy smoker, Inoue was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 2009 and died at his home on 9 April 2010 at the age of 75.