Lady Nijo

Lady Nijo is a historical figure from the 13th century. At the age of 14, she was given by her father to Gofukakusa, the Emperor of Japan, to become his consort. Later, she was expelled from the Emperor's court and became a traveling Buddhist nun. Lady Nijo traveled for 20 years in Japan.Her early years in the Emperor's court she remembered as the best days of her life.

She seems to interpret belonging to the Emperor as her life goal and being withdrawn as a tragedy. She was also the author of the autobiographical novel "The Confessions of Lady Nijo." She appears as a character in Caryl Churchill's play "Top Girls".

Born to a family with a reputation for literary ability, Nijo was raised in the Japanese imperial court where her father and grandfather held important positions. At the age of 13 she became a concubine to Retired Emperor GoFukakusa, 15 years older than she. Within two years her father had died, and other family members apparently did nothing to help Nijo become a consort, a role that would have given her permanent security. As a result, Nijo's position depended entirely on the good will of GoFukakusa.

Nijo had at least two lovers besides the retired emperor; in general, this didn't bother GoFukakusa, who appears to have enjoyed the role of voyeur as much or more than that of lover. By the time she was 25, Nijo had four children: one by GoFukakusa, the others by two of her lovers (only one of these without GoFukakusa's knowledge and tacit consent). However, because of her reputation, even perhaps untrue rumors were believed, and in 1283, Nijo was expelled from the court, the only home she had ever known, at the instigation of GoFukakusa's empress but with the retired emperor's approval.

Nijo's story then jumps to 1289 (some material may be missing from her book), by which time she was already a Buddhist nun: comparatively poor, but making pilgrimages throughout the country, thinking about her past and writing down her thoughts about what she saw and the people she met.

In 1304, after GoFukakusa's death, she decided to write her story. The five books of Towazugatari (literally, "an unsolicited tale") were completed sometime after 1307. Books 1-3 cover Nijo's time at court; Books 4 and 5 deal with her life and travels as a nun. The first books show a naive, though outwardly sophisticated, adolescent and young woman. The last books show a wiser woman reflecting on her life and responding to the "common" people she meets and the tales she hears.

"The Confessions of Lady Nijo" was not widely circulated after it was written and only a single manuscript has survived. It was discovered in 1940 by a scholar named Yamagishi Tohukei and was published in 1950. A complete annotated edition was published in 1966.

The work was translated from Japanese into English by Karen Brazell in 1973 and Wilfrid Whitehouse and Eizo Yanagisawa in 1974.

English translations

*Karen Brazell (trans) "The Confessions of Lady Nijo". A Zenith book published by Arrow Books Ltd., London,1983. ISBN 0600208133
*Wilfrid Whitehouse and Eizo Yanagisawa (trans) "Lady Nijo's own story; Towazugatari: the candid diary of a thirteenth-century Japanese imperial concubine". Tuttle, Rutland, Vt. 1974. ISBN: 0804811172.