JAPAN: Gosuke Uchimura, 88, scholar of Russian literature, wrote about his life in Siberian labour camp

. TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times - Kyodo / Obituary / January 31, 2009 Gosuke Uchimura, a renowned scholar of Russian literature who wrote about his experience in a Siberian labor camp, died of heart failure Friday in a hospital in Tokyo, family members said. He was 88. A native of Tochigi Prefecture, Uchimura, whose real name was Misao Naito, was recruited as a soldier in the Kwantung Army — a unit of the former Imperial Japanese Army — after graduating from school in 1943 in Harbin, northeastern China. Captured by the Soviet army after Japan's surrender in World War II in 1945, Uchimura was held in a Siberian labor camp until 1956. Copyright The Japan Times Ltd