Fumiko Enchi

Enchi Fumiko (Japanese円 地 文 子, civil Enchi Fumi (円 地 富 美), born October 2, 1905 in the prefecture of Tokyo, † November 12, 1986 ibid ) was a Japanese writer.

Life

Enchi Fumiko was born as the third child of the renowned linguist Ueda Kazutoshi and his wife Tsurubo in Tōkyō. At age 17, she left high school early in order to focus with private tutors in French, English and classical Chinese. Even in school she was reading Western writers such as Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but also aestheticist Japanese literature of Izumi Kyoka, Nagai Kafu and Tanizaki Jun'ichirô. She attended from 1918 to 1922, the Women's University Ochanomizu. She also attended lectures by Osanai Kaoru about the theater.

1926 her one-act drama Furusato (ふるさと) was published in the journal Kabuki; End of the 20s they came up with Hirabayashi Taiko, representative of proletarian literature in contact, which developed a lifelong friendship. 1928, he led the theater Tsukiji Sho- Gekijo ( Tsukiji Little Theatre) on their piece Banshun Soya ( Restless night in late spring ). Two years later she married the journalist Enchi Yoshimatsu. After the birth of her daughter Motoko 1932 Enchi turned to narrative prose and essay writing. During World War II she was with fellow writers in southern China and North Korea to the troops, on the go. 1945 in Tōkyō bombed and evacuated to Karuizawa, she had a year later a cancer undergoing surgery, from which she recovered only slowly.

With the novel Himojii Tsukihi (ひもじい 月日) she won the 1953 Award of the Society of Writers and made ​​the breakthrough. He subsequently produced in rapid succession other novels. From 1958 to 1976, she is also President of the Japanese writers association. In 1967 she transferred the novel Genji Monogatari from the 10th century into modern Japanese. In 1970 she became a member of the Japanese Academy of Arts. The work was published in 1972-73 in ten volumes. In 1986, she died of heart failure after they had already suffered a mild stroke last year.

Prizes and awards

Works (selection)

• The poet and the masks. Translated by Irmela Hijiya - Kirschnereit. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-458-16763-3

• Maple in winter. Translated by Barbara Krafft Yoshida, in:. Eleventh House, Munich, iudicium, 1987, p 130-145

• The couple. Translated by Barbara Krafft Yoshida, in:. Eleventh House, Munich, iudicium, 1987, p 52-61