Jakucho Setouchi
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer
Template:Nihongo foot (15 May 1922 – 9 November 2021; born Template:Nihongo foot formerly known as Template:Nihongo foot<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> was a Japanese Buddhist nun, writer, and activist. Setouchi wrote a best-selling translation of The Tale of Genji and over 400 fictional biographical and historical novels.<ref name="WaPo obit">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> In 1997, she was honoured as a Person of Cultural Merit, and in 2006, she was awarded the Order of Culture of Japan.
BiographyEdit
Setouchi was born Harumi Mitani on 15 May 1922 in Tokushima, Tokushima Prefecture to Toyokichi and Koharu Mitani.<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> Toyokichi was a cabinetmaker who made Buddhist and Shinto religious objects.<ref name="WaPo obit" /> In 1929, her family began using the surname Setouchi after her father was adopted by a family member.<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /><ref name="WaPo obit" />
Setouchi studied Japanese literature at Tokyo Woman's Christian University before her arranged marriage to scholar Yasushi Sakai in 1943.<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /><ref name="WaPo obit" /> She moved with her husband after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent him to Beijing, and gave birth to their daughter in 1944.<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> In 1945, her mother was killed in an air raid<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> and a grandmother was also killed during the war.<ref name="WaPo obit" /> She returned to Japan in 1946, settled with family in Tokyo in 1947, and in 1948, left her husband and daughter for a relationship with another man.<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /><ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021">Template:Cite news</ref>
1950 she divorced her husband and serialized her first novel in a magazine.<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> She continued to have sexual relationships, including affairs with married men, and some of her novels were semi-autobiographical.<ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" /><ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" />
In 1957, she won her first literary award for her novel "Qu Ailing, the Female College Student".<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /><ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" /> She then published Kashin ("Center of a Flower"),<ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" /> which was criticized for the sexual content, and to which she responded, "The critics who say such things all must be impotent and their wives frigid."<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> Publishing her work was difficult for several years afterwards, and critics called her a "womb writer".<ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" /><ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" />
She began to shift her novel writing focus to historical female writers and activists,<ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" /> eventually including Kanoko Okamoto, Toshiko Tamura, Sugako Kanno, Fumiko Kaneko,<ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" /> and Itō Noe.<ref name="Lowitz"/> In 1963, she was awarded The Women's Literature Prize (Joryu Bungaku Sho)<ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" /> for her 1962 book Natsu no Owari ("The End of Summer"),<ref name="Ryan 1990">Template:Cite journal</ref> which became a best-seller.<ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" /><ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> In 1968, she published the essay Ai no Rinri ("The Ethics of Love").<ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" />
In 1973, Setouchi began training to become a Buddhist nun<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> within the Tendai school of Buddhism,<ref name="Harding 2012" /> and received her name Jakuchō,<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> which means "silent, lonely listening."<ref name="Harding 2012">Template:Cite news</ref> From 1987 to 2005, she was the chief priestess at the Tendaiji temple in Iwate Prefecture.<ref name="DWW 2007">Template:Cite book</ref> Setouchi was a pacifist and became an activist, including by participating in protests of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq<ref name="WaPo obit" /> as well as anti-nuclear rallies in Fukushima after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami,<ref name="Yamaguchi 11-11-2021" /><ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> including an anti-nuclear hunger strike in 2012.<ref name="Mainichi 11-11-2021" /> She also opposed capital punishment.<ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" /><ref name="Harding 2012" />
She received the Tanizaki Prize for her novel Hana ni Toe ("Ask the Flowers") in 1992,<ref name="DWW 2007" /> and was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 1997.<ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" /> Her translation of The Tale of Genji from Classical Japanese took six years to complete and was published in ten volumes in 1998.<ref name="Kristof 1999">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Yamaguchi 11-11-2021">Template:Cite news</ref> She considered Prince Genji to be a plot device for the stories of the women of the court and used a contemporary version of Japanese for her translation.<ref name="Kristof 1999"/> The novel sold more than 2.1 million volumes by mid-1999.<ref name="Kristof 1999"/> After the book was published, she gave lectures and participated in discussion groups organized by her publisher for more than a year.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Shoji 1999">Template:Cite news</ref>
She received the Japanese Order of Culture in 2006.<ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" /> She also wrote under the pen name "Purple", and in 2008 revealed she had written a cell phone novel titled Tomorrow's Rainbow.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Yamaguchi 11-11-2021" /><ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" /> In 2016, she helped found the nonprofit Little Women Project to support young women experiencing abuse, exploitation, drug addiction, or poverty.<ref name="Osaki 11-14-2021" /><ref name="Rich 11-26-2021" /> In 2017, she published her novel Inochi ("Life"), and then continued to publish her writing in literary magazines.<ref name="Mainichi 11-11-2021">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Yamaguchi 11-11-2021" />
At the time of her death, her home temple was in the Kyoto Sagano area.<ref name="Mainichi 11-11-2021" /> Setouchi died of heart failure in Kyoto, Japan, on 9 November 2021 at the age of 99.<ref name="Rich 11-26-2021">Template:Cite news</ref>
WorksEdit
- Joshidaisei Chui Airin ("Qu Ailing, the Female College Student") (1957)
- Natsu no owari ("The End of Summer") (1962), translated by Janine Beichman Template:ISBN
- Kashin ("Center of a Flower") (1963) Template:Oclc
- Miren ("Lingering Affections") (1963)
- Kiji ("Pheasant") (1963) translated by Robert Huey in Template:ISBN
- Hana ni toe ("Ask the Flowers") (1992)
- Beauty in Disarray (1993), translated by Sanford Goldstein and Kazuji Ninomiya<ref name="Lowitz">Template:Cite journal</ref> Template:ISBN
- The Tale of Genji (1998)
- Basho ("Places") (2001)
Honours and awardsEdit
- 1957 Shinchosha Coterie Magazine AwardTemplate:Cn for Joshidaisei Chui Airin
- 1963 Women's Literature Prize (Joryu Bungaku Sho) for Natsu no Owari<ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021" />
- 1992 Tanizaki Prize for Hana ni Toe
- 1997 Person of Cultural Merit<ref name="Jiji 11-11-2021">Template:Cite news</ref>
- 2001 Noma Prize in literature for Basho Template:Cn
- 2006 Order of Culture of Japan
- 2006 International Nonino Prize<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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