[3][4] While still a student, he contributed translations of modern French poets and also his own writings to the literary journal Roba,[1] published and edited by critic Tsurujirō Kubokawa.

[5] He regarded himself as a disciple of Akutagawa, but also showed influences of Raymond Radiguet and Marcel Proust,[1] and the Proletarian Literature Movement.

"The Holy Family"), which was written under the impression of Akutagawa's death[1] and even paid reference to the dead mentor in the shape of the deceased character Kuki.

[6] During one of his regular stays in Karuizawa, Nagano, he met his future fiancée Ayako Yano, a time which he portrayed in his novel Beautiful Village.

[7] Both ill with tuberculosis, the couple moved to a sanatorium in Nagano Prefecture,[1] which Hori used as the setting for his most famous novel, The Wind Has Risen,[6][7] a fictionalised account of his fiancée's last months before her death in December 1935.