Fumiko Hayashi (author)

nihongo|Fumiko Hayashi|林 芙美子|Hayashi Fumiko|December 31 1903 or 1904 (Japanese sources disagree on the birth year) - June 28, 1951 was a Japanese novelist and poet. When Hayashi was seven, her mother ran away with a manager of her common-law husband's store, and afterwards the three worked in Kyūshū as itinerant merchants.

After graduating from high school in 1922, Hayashi moved to Tokyo with a lover and lived with several men until settling into marriage with the painter nihongo| Rokubin Tezuka|手塚 緑敏 in 1926.

Many of her works revolve around themes of free spirited women and troubled relationships. One of her best-known works is "Hōrōki" (translated into English as "Vagabond's Song") (nihongo2|放浪記, 1927), which was adapted into the anime Wandering Days. Another is her late novel "Ukigumo" ("Floating Clouds," 1951), which was made into a movie by Mikio Naruse in 1955.

Hayashi's work is notable as well for its feminist themes. She was later to face criticism for accepting sponsored-trips by the Japanese military government to occupied China, from where she reported positively on Japanese administration.

ee also

*Japanese literature
*List of Japanese authors