Namiki Senryu

Namiki Senryu, also known as Namiki Sosuke (1695 to 1751), was a Japanese playwright for the joruri puppet theater and for kabuki, probably born in Mihara in Bingo Province. He was a Buddhist monk of the Rinzai sect before leaving the priesthood at thirty to become a playwright in Osaka, first under the name Senryu Tanaka and from 1726 as Sosuke Namiki. He wrote kabuki briefly from 1743 and returned to joruri at the Takemoto-za in 1745. With Takeda Izumo II and Miyoshi Shoraku he co-authored Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami, Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura and Kanadehon Chushingura. He died in 1751 while writing Ichi no Tani Futabagunki.