Born in 1891 in Ueda, Nagano Prefecture. As a Tokyo Imperial University student he founded the third series of Shinshicho with Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Kikuchi Kan, and others, taking a place in the Taisho literary world. He became a popular novelist with works like Hotaru-gusa and Jukensei no Shuki, and shared plays such as Gyunyu-ya no Kyodai and Chichi Kaeru with his lifelong ally Kikuchi Kan. Living in Kamakura, he was a central figure of the so-called 'Kamakura Bunshi' literary circle, moving among Kawabata Yasunari, Satomi Ton, and Osaragi Jiro while engaging with literature, politics, and business. Under the haiku name Santei he led the journal Kamakura Haiku and was deeply engaged in haiku, leaving many verses on the landscape of Kamakura. He died suddenly on March 1, 1952, at age 60.

Bold, gregarious, and moving freely among the worlds of literature, politics, and business. Though tormented in private by frailty and loneliness, he maintained a bright public face as the genial figurehead of the 'Kamakura Bunshi.'

As the core of the Kamakura Bunshi, he cultivated the soil of prewar and postwar Kamakura literature. The trio of Akutagawa, Kikuchi, and Kume is engraved in literary history as an emblem of Taisho literature. In haiku, he is remembered for verses featuring Kamakura place-names.