Yoshiko Shibaki


Yoshiko Shibaki was a Japanese writer of short stories and novels. She was awarded numerous prizes for her work, including the Akutagawa Prize and the Women's Literature Prize.

Biography

Early life

Shibaki was born in Tokyo on 7 May 1914 into a merchant family. From an early age on, she was trained in traditional Japanese arts like the tea ceremony, writing tanka and painting, and was taken to see kabuki plays. She graduated from Tokyo Prefectural Daiichi High School in 1932 and started studying English at Surugadai YWCA Women's Academy. After her father's death, she aborted her studies and started working at the Mitsubishi Center for Economic Studies to support her family. In 1941, she married economist Kiyoshi Oshima.

Career

Shibaki started contributing to literary magazines such as Reijokai and Wakakusa in 1935 after her mother's death. She was awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 1941 for her short story "Seika no ichi", making her the second female writer to win the award. During World War II, she was sent to Manchuria by the Japanese military government to write about Japanese settlements there, while her literary output lessened. After the war, she published stories like Nagareru hi, Onna hitori and Ruri no uta which thematised domestic social changes. In the 1950s, she gained critical attention with Susaki paradaisu and Yakoo no onna, both fictional accounts of Tokyo's prostitution milieu. Her trilogy of biographical stories, Yuba, Sumidagawa and Marounuchi hachigokan, published between 1960 and 1962, are regarded as highlights in her literary career.
She became a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1980, and received their Award for the Literary Arts in 1981. Her novel Sumidagawa boshoku won the Shincho Literary Award and the Nihon Literature Prize.
Shibaki died of breast cancer on 25 August 1991.

Film adaptations (selected)