Japanese Women Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook

Women have made many important contributions to Japanese literature since the Heian period (794-1192), when Murasaki Shikibu wrote her prose masterpiece, The Tale of Genji. Even earlier, though documentation is scant, women actively participated in Japanese letters as poets. This reference is a guide to the work of Japanese women writers from centuries ago to the present day. The volume includes 58 alphabetically arranged biographical and critical profiles of these women.

The book profiles women writers who are considered mainstream writers in Japan and who have attracted attention in the West, chiefly through translations of their works and critical scholarship on their writings. Each entry discusses the subject's life, career, major works, and works in English translation. A bibliography concludes each article. While most of the women are poets, novelists, or authors of classical narrative fiction, the book also includes entries for premodern diarists, modern dramatists, television script writers, and movie scenario writers. An extensive bibliography and chronology conclude the volume.

""This reference work is a welcome addition to the rapidly expanding interest within Japanese studies, as well as more generally, in women writers. The Japan specialist and the novice alike can enjoy these essays." Choice

Booknews

A reference that alphabetically covers 58 Japanese women writers from the ninth century to the present through detailed profiles of the authors' lives and careers and critical examination of their writings and relevant historical background. Included are novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, and diarists, to name a few--all of whom fall into the category of "mainstream" writers occupying prominent places in Japan's literary history, with only a few recently-discovered premodern diarists and possibly one modern writer as exceptions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

CHIEKO I. MULHERN is a Professor of Japanese Studies at Fukuoka Jogakuin College, and was a Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois until 1992.