Right near Odori Park in Sapporo, quietly standing among the department-store frontage (near Marui Imai) and the streetscape, is a monument marking the 「Birthplace of Novelist・武林夢想庵（たけばやし むそうあん）」. This is the memorable birthplace of a novelist sometimes described as 「the first writer from Hokkaido」, who lived a somewhat unconventional and eventful life. In Meiji 13（1880年）, he was born around this area of Odori Nishi 2-chome. Sapporo’s development had only recently begun at the time. His father was the photographer 三島常磐（みしまときわ）, a pioneer of photography in Sapporo. He was later adopted into the 武林 family, a family of famous photographers in Tokyo, which is how he came to have the name 「武林」. He left Sapporo for Honshu when he was just 4 years old and later followed an elite path, including attending Tokyo Imperial University (today’s University of Tokyo), but his life from there was quite intense. After dropping out of university, he plunged into a remarkably self-destructive and freewheeling life of wandering. During the Taisho era, he stirred up Japan’s literary world as one of the writers of the avant-garde art movement 「Dada（Dadaism）」, which sought to smash established conventions and order. What’s more, whether you call it romantic or tumultuous, he traveled to France repeatedly and lived in Europe for a total of 17 years, while a pistol incident involving his wife made public news. His real life was more dramatic than the drama in a novel. In his later years, he lost his sight in both eyes to glaucoma, but he still didn’t give up. By dictating to his wife, he left behind the major autobiographical work 『むさうあん物語』 and raced through a life of 82 years. When visiting Odori for everyday shopping or a stroll, it’s easy to pass this monument thinking, 「Who is that?」 But when you realize that this scandalous, passionate novelist who traversed a turbulent era on a global scale was actually born right here in central Sapporo, the city’s scenery takes on a slightly different flavor, doesn’t it?