Yoshiya Nobuko

Yoshiya Nobuko (late 1930s)

Yoshiya Nobuko ( Japanese 吉 屋 信 子; born January 12, 1896 in Niigata Prefecture ; † July 11, 1973 in Kamakura , Kanagawa Prefecture ) was a Japanese writer who was commercial during the Taishō period and at the beginning of the Shōwa period belonged to the most successful and respected authors in Japan and was best known for her romantic feuilleton novels and her novels about adolescent girls. In addition, she was a pioneer of lesbian Japanese literaturewhich also included the "S-class genre" (Kurasu Esu) of emotionally strong relationships between schoolgirls. Several of her works were also made into films and she was awarded the Women's Literature Prize in 1951 and the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1967.

Life

Yoshiya Nobuko grew up in Mooka and Tochigi in Tochigi Prefecture , where her father first worked as a police officer and later as a local government official. She was the only daughter and the youngest of five children and was descended from both maternal and paternal samurai families . She was raised by her culturally conservative parents in accordance with the expected traditional understanding of the Meiji period for her role as a “good wife, wise mother”, but at the same time began her first literary works. In 1915 she moved to Tokyo , where she gradually deviated from traditional Japanese career and gender expectations. She dressed in an androgynous style and appeared as a photo model for various magazines . She was one of the first Japanese women to emulate western fashion style and get her hair cut short in the 1920s. She defied role expectations in other ways and was one of the first Japanese women to own a car. She also designed her own house, owned her own racehorse, and played golf . Her novel Chi no hate made , published in 1920, was awarded the Asahi Shimbun daily newspaper's literary prize.

In January 1923 she met Chiyo Monma, a math teacher at a girls' school in Tokyo. Both had a same - sex relationship that lasted around fifty years . Unlike many Japanese public figures, Yoshiya Nobuko did not hold back but revealed details of her personal life through photos, personal essays, and interviews with magazines. In 1926, the two women began their working relationship as a writer and secretary and traveled through Manchuria , the Soviet Union and Paris between 1927 and 1928 , before returning to Japan after a stay in the USA . In the late 1930s, both traveled through the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina . For her novel Onibi , Yoshiya Nobuko was awarded the Women's Literature Prize in 1951 . In 1957 she adopted Chiyo Monma, which at the time was the only legal way for lesbians to share their assets and make medical decisions for one another. During and after World War II , she lived in Kanagawa Prefecture , where she built a traditional wooden house with a Japanese-style garden in 1962. In 1967 she was honored with the Kikuchi Kan Prize .

Until her death from colon cancer , she campaigned for the promotion of cultural and educational activities for women. Although Yoshiya Nobuko was a passionate feminist , she mistrusted political parties and never became active in the organized Japanese feminist movement. After her death she was buried at the temple of Kōtoku-in in Kamakura.

reception

“Nobuko Yoschiya is Japan's most successful storyteller. The fact that women dominate literature is nothing new to the land of the rising sun. Women have been poetic here since prehistoric times, and the heyday of Japanese poetry - around 1000 AD - owes its classic, lasting significance to women who wrote. This can only be said of today's successful poet Nobuko Yoschiya, insofar as it concerns readers. These read their novels with real delight, while the men read them only to shudder back at themselves, as such despicable monsters they are drawn by the Japanese. […] It goes without saying that Nobuko Yoschiya, whose most read storybook is called 'Loyalty to Her Husband', did not take on the chains of marriage himself. […] Nobuko Yoschiya was certainly brought up to become the ideal of a wife, as perfectly as it is only possible in Japan. [...] And so she traveled, accompanied by her friend Monda (sic!) So that she would have a witness, around the world and through all countries, studying the manners of men and the situation of women. [...] Only one thing could change: overthrow of the rule of men, the woman as master of custom alone has to get all rights. This blaring battle cry: fight the man to the last! for the time being has only the result of helping the Japanese's books to get a high circulation. The men themselves have another battle to fight - that in marriage. "

- Review in the Neue Wiener Tagblatt on April 12, 1939

Publications

Along with Higuchi Ichiyō , Fumiko Hayashi and Sata Ineko, she is one of the most famous Japanese writers. She was one of the most commercially successful and respected authors in Japan , especially during the Taishō period and at the beginning of the Shōwa period . Her works include:

• Yaneura no nishojo , 1919
• Chi no hate made , 1920
• Hana monogatari , 1924
• Onna no yujo , 1934
• Otto no Teiso , 1937
• Onibi , 1951
• Jidenteki joryu bundanshi , 1962
• Atakake no hitobito , 1965
• Toki no koe , 1965
• Tokugawa no fujintachi , 1966
• Chidori. Hoka tanpenshū , 1969
• Watakushi no mita bijintachi , 1969
• Aru nyoninzō. Kindai joryū kajin den , Literary Critical Essays, 1970
• Nyonin Heike , 1971
• Watakushi no mita hito , 1972

posthumously:

• Yoshiya Nobuko kushū , 1974
• Yoshiya Nobuko zenshū , 1975
• Soko no nuketa hishaku. Yushu no haijintachi , 1979
• Ano michi kono michi , 1984

Background literature

• Yoshitake Teruko: Nyonin Yoshiya Nobuko , Bungei Shunjū, 1982, ISBN 4163-3-7710-7
• Yoshiya Eiko: Kaze o miteita hito. Kaiso no Yoshiya Nobuko , Asahi Shinbunsha, 1992, ISBN 978-4-0225-8520-2
• Komashaku, Kimi: Yoshiya Nobuko. Kakure feminisuto. Shirizu minkan Nihon gakusha , Shohan Edition, 1994, ISBN 978-4-8457-0954-0
• Ryuji Takasaki: Senjo no joryu sakkatachi. Yoshiya Nobuko, Hayashi Fumiko, Sata Ineko, Masugi Shizue, Toyota Masako , Shohan Edition, 1995, ISBN 978-4-8460-0121-6
• Tanabe Seiko: Yume haruka Yoshiya Nobuko. Akitomoshi tsukue no ue no ikusanga , Asahi Shinbunsha, 1999, ISBN 4022-5-7392-9
• Satoko Kan: Onna ga kokka o uragiru toki. Jogakusei, Ichiyō, Yoshiya Nobuko , Iwanami Shoten, 2011, ISBN 978-4000-2-2411-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A Japanese woman fights the men. In:  Neues Wiener Tagblatt. Democratic organ / Neues Wiener Abendblatt. Evening edition of the (") Neue Wiener Tagblatt (") / Neues Wiener Tagblatt. Evening edition of the Neue Wiener Tagblatt / Wiener Mittagsausgabe with Sportblatt / 6 o'clock evening paper / Neues Wiener Tagblatt. Neue Freie Presse - Neues Wiener Journal / Neues Wiener Tagblatt , April 12, 1939, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).

Web links

• Contemporary Japanese Literature
• UNTRANSLATED CLASSICS: YOSHIYA NOBUKO
• Bibliography ( Open Library )

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Yoshiya is the family name, Nobuko the first name.