Japanese Lit Challenge 18 #1

I read this book for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18.

In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life and Writings of Higuchi Ichiyo - Robert Lyons Danly

Higuchi Ichiyo (born Natsuko) was the first woman professional writer of Japan’s modern era. Her formidable visage was on the ¥5000 note until July, 2024. Dying of TB at only 24 years of age, she left only a long diary, some poetry, and a handful of stories. The Japanese, at least up to about 50 years ago, liked her diary for its wistful tone and attention to the details of everyday life. But Higuchi’s reputation has been high among literary scholars and Danly claims that she

…cut a wide swath through Meiji letters. Her grasp of high Heian, her love of low Edo were almost legendary, but she was still sui generis. In her bold and idiosyncratic style, she had rediscovered a way to be serious in fiction, something nearly two-hundred years' worth of writers had forgotten. She returned the novel to the province of the heart.

The first section of this book is a short critical biography. She was an extremely bright child and avid reader. In the very early Meiji period her father enrolled her in schools that gave her an extensive grounding in the Chinese and Japanese classics.  After dramatic personal struggles and artistic wrong turns, she forged a voice that combined the resources of traditional literature with themes related to modern Japan.

The book also presents Danly’s translations of nine of her stories. The characters are people in adversity, excluded from advantages and stability. Because of their precarity, they have a strong sense of the transience and fragility of their own existence. The stories are annotated clearly with notes for readers who don’t what the Yoshiwara was.