Lafcadio Hearn

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Lafcadio Hearn alias Koizumi Yakumo

Patricio Lafcadio Tessima Carlos Hearn ( Japanese name : 小泉八雲 , Koizumi Yakumo * 27. June 1850 in Lefkada , Greece ; † 26. September 1904 in Tokyo ) was a writer Irish-Greek origin, whose works the Western image of Japan in the beginning Have decisively shaped the 20th century.

Life

Lafcadio Hearn was born as Patricio Lafcadio Tessima Carlos Hearn in 1850 on the island of Lefkas . His father Charles Bush Hearn was stationed there as a British military doctor; his mother was the Greek Rosa Tessima. When Lafcadio Hearn was two years old, his father took him and his mother to Dublin to live with his great-aunt Justine Brenane. Lafcadio's mother was so unhappy in these dreary surroundings that she soon left her son and family and disappeared. His father died of malaria on the way to India in 1866.

Koizumi Yakumo and his wife

Lafcadio was brought to St. Cuthbert's College in England in 1863 . However, due to lack of financial means, he was only able to attend school sporadically. In college, he was blinded in one eye from an accident and the other was affected by overexertion. From childhood on, Lafcadio was very shy and sensitive, and his blindness made him ugly. Between 1866 and 1867 he lived in London thanks to a small scholarship and attended a Catholic school there. He was expelled from this school for bad behavior. In 1869 his great aunt paid him for the passage to America.

Until 1874 Hearn worked in Cincinnati in a printing company, where he had previously completed an apprenticeship as a printer. There he came into contact with the works of Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire . In 1874 he married the African American Alethea Foley, and three years later they divorced. In 1877, Hearn went to New Orleans as a journalist and began translating from French and Spanish.

For some time Hearn worked as a journalist in New York . Since this city became too hectic for him, he went to Japan in 1890. After a few months he was able to establish himself as a language teacher in Matsue , but fell ill there. At the suggestion of a friend, he married Koizumi Setsu, the daughter of an impoverished samurai, in 1891, in gratitude for the care she had given him. With her he had a daughter and three sons.

Hearn's grave in Tokyo

Upon marriage, Hearn took the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo . In 1895 he received the Japanese citizenship. However, this also meant that he was only entitled to the salary of a local teacher. He lived in the coastal town of Matsue for about a year.

In 1896, Basil Hall Chamberlain gave him a position as professor of English literature at the Imperial University of Tokyo .

On September 26, 1904, Lafcadio Hearn died of a heart attack in Tokyo. His grave is in the Zōshigaya Cemetery in the Toshima- ku district, Tokyo.

Honors

In Tokyo's Ōkubo district in Shinjuku district, a plaque has been placed on the site of Lafcadio's house.

In 2014, the “Lafcadio Hearn Historical Center” ( Greek Ιστορικό Κέντρο Λευκάδιου Χερν Istorikó Kéntro Lefkádiou Chern ) opened on his native island of Lefkas .

Works (selection)

Beginning of Volume 1 Kokoro Foreword Hugo v. Hofmannsthal
Beginning of the 2nd volume lotus
  • A 6-volume edition was published in German between 1905 and 1910:
    • Kokoro. With a foreword by Hugo von Hofmannsthal ("Kokoro. Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life"). Translation Berta Franzos . Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1905 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
    • Lotus. Look into the unknown Japan . Translation Berta Franzos. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1906 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
    • Izumo. Look into the unknown Japan . Translation Berta Franzos. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1907 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
    • Kwaidan. Strange Stories and Studies from Japan ("Kwaidan. Stories and Studies of Strange Things"). Translation Berta Franzos. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1909 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
    • Buddha. New stories and studies from Japan (“Gleanings in Buddha-Fields”). Translation Berta Franzos. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1910 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
    • Kyushu. Dreams and Studies from the New Japan ("Out of the East. Reveries and Studies in New Japan"). Translation Berta Franzos. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1908 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
  • Exotics and Retrospectives . Literary House, Upper Saddle River, NJ 1969 (Reprinted from Boston, Mass. 1898 edition).
  • The story of Ming-Y . Edition Röll, Dettelbach 1999, ISBN 3-89754-147-5 (bilingual, German-English).
  • Ghost stories from Japan ("In Ghostly Japan"), edited and translated by Gustav Meyrink ; Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-596-22807-7 (former title Japanese ghost stories ).
  • In a Japanese garden . Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-7175-4052-1 .
  • Japan. An attempt at interpretation . Tuttle Books, Rutland, Vt. 1978, ISBN 0-8048-0272-6 (reprinted from Boston, Mass. 1904 edition).
  • Japanese Fairy Tales . Pauper Books, Mt. Vernon 1936 (reprinted from Boston, Mass. 1898 edition).
  • Japanese Lyrics . Gardners Books, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-548-11609-8 (reprinted 1901 New York edition).
  • The Japanese smile. Dreams and stories. Look into the immortal soul of Japan . Deltus Verlag, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-86552-052-4 .
  • Kottō. Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs . 3rd ed. Tuttle Press, Rutland, Vt. 1981, ISBN 0-8048-1013-3 (reprinted from Boston, Mass. 1903 edition).
  • Legends - A Collection by Lafcardio Hearn . Gyldendal'scher Verlag, Berlin 1921
  • Nippon. Life and experiences in ancient Japan 1890–1904 (Ed. By Frank Rainer Scheck). DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1981
  • Fantasies . Gyldendal'scher Verlag, Berlin 1922
  • The Romance of the Milky Way and other studies and stories . Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY 1969 (reprinted from London 1905 edition).
  • Shadowings . Little, Brown, Boston, Mass. 1900.
  • The dream eater. Japanese ghost stories . Ullstein, Frankfurt / M. 1988, ISBN 3-548-40049-3 (translated by Gustav Meyrink ).
  • The reconciliation of the samurai - scary stories from Japan . Hibarios, Kaarst 2014, ISBN 978-3-945058-05-3 (translated by Klaus Lerch ).
  • Chita. A memory of Last Island. Novel . (Chita. A memory of Last Island). Translated from the English by Alexander Pechmann . Jung and Jung, Salzburg / Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-99027-068-4 .
  • Japan's ghosts . Translated from English by Berta Franzos, selected by Christian Döring , with woodcuts by Franziska Neubert and an afterword by Christoph Neidhart . The Other Library , Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-8477-0372-3 .
  • Youma. The story of a West Indian slave . Translated from the English by Alexander Pechmann. Jung and Jung, Salzburg / Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-99027-079-0 .
  • The Leeward Islands. A summer trip. Translated from the English by Alexander Pechmann. Jung und Jung, Salzburg / Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-99027-218-3 .

See also

literature

  • Louis Allen: Lafcadio Hearn. Japan's great interpreter; a new anthology of his writings 1894–1904 . Japan Library, Folkestone 1992, ISBN 1-873410-02-6 .
  • Jonathan Cott: Wandering Ghost. The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn . Knopf, New York 1990, ISBN 0-394-57152-5 .
  • Sukehiro Hirakawa (Ed.): Lafcadio Hearn in international perspectives . Global Oriental Edition, Folkestone 2007, ISBN 978-1-905246-26-7 .
  • Elizabeth S. Ives: Lafcadio Hearn . New York 1961 (Reprinted by Octagon Books, New York 1979, BN 0-374-97625-2).
  • Nina H. Kennard: Lafcadio Hearn. Containing some letters from Lafcadio Hearn to his half-sister Mrs. Atkinson . New York 1912 (reprinted by Kennikat Press, Port Washington 1967).
  • Florian Lehmann: The Rediscovery of Lafcadio Hearns A brief look at his life and work . In: literaturkritik.de. June 2018 ( https://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=24581 )
  • Bernadette Lemoine: Exotisme spirituel et esthétique dans la vie et l'œuvre de Lafcadio Hearn, 1850-1904 . Didier, Paris 1988, ISBN 2-86460-116-8 .
  • Vera McWilliams: Lafcadio Hearn . Boston 1946 (reprinted by Cooper Square Publ., New York 1970).
  • Paul Murray: A fantastic journey. The life and literature of Lafcadio Hearn . University Press, Ann Arbor, Mich. 1997, ISBN 0-472-10834-4 .
  • Michael Siemer: Japanese thinking with Lafcadio Hearn and Okakura Tenshin . Two stylizing aesthetics in cultural contact . Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-928463-66-7 (plus dissertation, University of Düsseldorf 1997).
  • Elizabeth Stevenson: The grass lark. A study of Lafcadio Hearn . New York 1961 (Reprint) Transaction Publ., New York 1999, ISBN 0-7658-0485-9 .
  • Edward Thomas: Lafcadio Hearn . London 1912 (reprinted by Folcroft Library Press, Folcroft, Pa. 1977).
  • Stefan Zweig : Lafcadio Hearn . In: The Japanese Book. A selection from Lafcadio Hearn's works . Translation from English by Berta Franzos. Literary Institute, Frankfurt am Main 1911.
    • New edition under the title Das Japanbuch. A selection from the works of Lafcadio Hearn . Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt am Main 1919.
    • Reprinted in: Stefan Zweig: European Heritage . Published by Richard Friedenthal. S. Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1960; Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / Main 1981, pp. 102–109.
    • Reprinted in: Stefan Zweig: Essays. Selection 1907–1924 . Edited by Dietrich Simon. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1983, pp. 22-30.
  • Hearn, Lafcadio . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 13 : Harmony - Hurstmonceaux . London 1910, p. 128 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Koizumi Yakumo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hubert Winkels : The Irishman who invented Japan . In: Die Zeit , No. 27/2017, p. 40.
  2. ↑ Jonathan Cott: Wandering Ghost. The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn . Knopf, New York 1990, pp. 14-15.
  3. ^ Grave of Lafcadio Hearn (Yakumo Koizumi) knerger.de
  4. ^ Lafcadio Hearn Historical Center. The Hearn Society, 2014, accessed September 4, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Hearn, Lafcadio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hearn, Patricio Lafcadio Tessima Carlos (full name); 小泉 八 雲 (Japanese); Koizumi Yakumo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Writer of Irish-Greek descent, whose works have decisively shaped the western image of Japan
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Lefkada , Greece
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1904
Place of death Tokyo