Nogami Yaeko
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Nogami Yaeko |
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| Born: | 6 May 1885 Usuki, Ōita, Japan |
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| Died: | 30 March 1995 |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Genres: | novels |
- This is a Japanese name; the family name is Nogami.
Yaeko Nogami (野上弥生子 Nogami Yaeko?) (6 May 1885 - 30 March 1995) was the pen-name of a novelist in Showa period Japan. Her maiden name was Kotegawa Yae.
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[edit] Early life
Nogami was born in Usuki, Ōita, Oita prefecture as the daughter of a wealthy sake brewer. She was taught at home by private tutors, including Kubo Kaizo, who introduced her to classic Chinese literature, classic Japanese literature and taught her the art of writing tanka poetry. She met the novelist Kinoshita Naoe, who persuaded her to enter the Meiji Jogakko, a Christan-orientated girls’ school in Tokyo. While a student in Tokyo, she met Nogami Toyoichiro, a student of Noh drama and English literature under Natsume Soseki. They were married in 1906, but she continued to work towards literary recognition. Her first published work was a short story Enshi ("Ties of Lov"e) in the literary magazine Hototogisu in 1907.
[edit] Literary career
In the 1910, Nogami submitted poems and short stories to the mainstream literary journal Chuo Koron, Shincho, and to the feminist magazine Seito, and gained a substantial following with fans of the proletarian literature movement. She maintained a correspondence with fellow women writers Yuasa Yoshiko and Miyamoto Yuriko, with whom she shared the sentiment that literature must serve a purpose towards increasing morality and social activism. In 1922, she published Kaijin maru ("The Neptune", tr. 1957), a shocking semi-factual account of four men in the crew of a wrecked fishing boat, who must struggle with the choice of starvation or cannibalism.
Nogami started to explore historical fiction in the 1920s, with Oishi Yoshio, a story about one of the Forty-seven Ronin in 1926.
As the Japanese government turned increasingly toward totalitarianism and it appeared that war was growing inevitable, she and her husband traveled to Europe where they lived throughout World War II. On their return to Japan after the war, she resumed her contacts with Miyamoto Yuriko, and joined her in the foundation of the Shin Nihon Bungakukai.
Her postwar output was prolific and varied, including Hideyoshi to Rikyu ("Hideyoshi and Rikyu", 1962-1963), in which she explores the relationship between artist and patron (in this case Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Sen no Rikyu).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- [http://www.usuki-kanko.com/tanosimu/nogami/yaeko.html Nogami Yaeko Memorial Museum site (Japanese)
[edit] References
- Copeland, Rebecca. The Modern Murasaki, Writing by Women of Meiji Japan. Columbia University Press (2006). ISBN: 0-231-13774-5
