Yuasa Yoshiko
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Yuasa Yoshiko |
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| Born: | 1896 Kyoto, Japan |
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| Died: | 24 October 1990 Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Genres: | Russian literature translations |
Yoshiko Yuasa (湯浅芳子 Yuasa Yoshiko?) (1896 - 24 October 1990) was a Russian language scholar and translator of Russian literature in Showa period Japan.
Born in Kyoto, Yuasa was an early supporter of the feminist movement in late Taisho and early Showa period Japan. Moving to Tokyo, she was also drawn to leftist political movements and became close friends with leading female proletarian literature movement novelist Nakajo Yuriko. In 1924, after Nakajo divorced her husband, the two women began to live together, and from 1927-1930, traveled together to the Soviet Union, where they studied the Russian language and Russian literature and developed a friendship with noted movie director Sergei Eisenstein.
After their return to Japan, Nakajo remarried (to the leader of the Japan Communist Party and Yuasa continued with her translation work of Russian authors, especially the works of Maxim Gorky, Anton Chekov and Samuil Marshak. She is especially known for her translation of Chekov's The Cherry Orchard. Yuasa died in 1990, and her grave is at Tōkei-ji, a temple in Kamakura.
[edit] Legacy
After her death, the Yuasa Yoshiko Prize was established for the best translation of a foreign language stage play into Japanese.
