Lafcadio Hearn

Patricio Lafcadio Hearn Tessima Carlos ( Japanese name :小泉 八 云, Koizumi Yakumo, born July 27, 1850, Lefkas, Greece, † September 26, 1904 in Tokyo ) was an Irish writer of Greek descent, whose works the Western image of Japan in the beginning of the 20th century have made their mark.

Life

Lafcadio Hearn was born Patricio Lafcadio Hearn Tessima Carlos 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 Pink Tessima. As Lafcadio Hearn was two years old, his father and his mother brought him to Dublin to his great-aunt Justine Brenane. Lafcadios mother was so unhappy that she soon son and family left and disappeared in this dreary environment. A short time later, his father was killed in India.

1863 Lafcadio was brought to the St. Cuthbert 's College in England. However, due to lack of funding it was only enough to sporadic school attendance. In college, he was blinded by an accident on one eye and the other was affected by the strain. From childhood on Lafcadio was very shy and sensitive, through the blindness he saw himself as ugly. Between 1866 and 1867 he lived with a small scholarship in London, where he attended a Catholic school. Because of bad behavior, he flew from this school in 1869 and paid him his great-aunt the crossing to America.

Up to 1874 Hearn worked in Cincinnati in a print shop, where he had previously completed a printing apprenticeship. There he came to the works of Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire in touch. 1877 Hearn went as a journalist to New Orleans and began to translate from French and Spanish.

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

When marriage Hearn had accepted the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo. 1895, the Japanese civil rights were bestowed upon him. However, this also meant that he had only entitled to the salary of a local teacher. He lived about a year in the coastal city of Matsue.

1896 Basil Hall Chamberlain gave him a job as a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University.

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

Honors

In Tokyo's Okubo district in Shinjuku a plaque is erected at the site of Lafcadios house.

Works (selection)

Between 1905 and 1910, a six - volume edition appeared in German:

  • Kokoro. With a foreword by Hugo von Hofmannsthal ( " Kokoro. Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life "). Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1907 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
  • Lotus. Glimpses into the unknown Japan. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1906 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
  • Izumo. Glimpses into the unknown Japan. Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1907 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
  • Kwaidan. Strange stories and studies from Japan ( " Kwaidan. Stories and Studies of Strange Things"). Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1909 (illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
  • Buddha. New stories and studies from Japan ( " Gleanings in Buddha -Fields "). Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1910 ( illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
  • Kyushu. Dreams and studies in the new Japan ( "Out of the East. Reveries and Studies in New Japan "). Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / M. 1910 ( illustrated by Emil Orlik ).
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