Yuriko Miyamoto
1899–1951 · Japanese novelist, short-story writer and activist
Yuriko Miyamoto (1899–1951) was a Japanese novelist, short-story writer and social activist who worked through the Taishō and early Shōwa eras. Born Chūjō Yuriko in Tokyo, she is remembered for autobiographical fiction that engaged with proletarian and women's liberation movements.
She began writing while still a student, and in 1916 the magazine Chūō Kōron accepted her story 'A Crowd of Poor People'. After leaving university in 1918 and spending time in the United States, where she divorced her first husband, she wrote Nobuko, a semi-autobiographical novel about a failed marriage and the search for independence. A trip to the Soviet Union in 1927 followed, and after returning she edited the magazine Hataraku Fujin and joined the Communist Party.
Repeated arrests and censorship in the 1930s kept her work out of circulation for long stretches, and she spent more than two years in prison. In the postwar years she produced her most prolific period, including The Banshū Plain, a novel about Japan after the surrender. She died in 1951 from complications of meningitis.
Key works
- A Crowd of Poor People (1916), the story with which she debuted in Chūō Kōron.
- Nobuko (1924–1926; book edition 1928), a semi-autobiographical novel about a failed marriage and the search for independence.
- The Banshū Plain (1947), a novel about Japan in the months after the surrender.
- Milestones (Dōhyō, 1950), her last novel, published shortly before her death.
Curiosities
An early debut
She wrote her first story while a student at Japan Women's University. The magazine Chūō Kōron accepted it, and the story went on to win a prize from the Shirakaba literary circle.
A husband who was also imprisoned
Her second husband, the communist critic Miyamoto Kenji, was also imprisoned, from December 1933 until August 1945. The two kept up a long correspondence during those years.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.