Yutaka Hayauchi

Yutaka Hayauchi was born in Masuda, Japan, in 1951. He initially studied chemistry at the University of Osaka and later at the University of Hamburg, where he earned a doctorate in organic chemistry. During his studies, he worked as a translator and interpreter. In 1984, he joined Bayer in Leverkusen as a research chemist. Among other duties, he was responsible for drug approvals in Japan and worked in the development of new medicines in Leverkusen and Wuppertal until 2016. He became a German citizen in 1998. From 2016 to 2023, a 21-volume complete German translation of Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel “The Tale of Taira” was published. Hayauchi first encountered the novel while living with his family in Kyoto from 1988 to 1991.