12 Facts About Jakucho Setouchi

Jakucho Setouchi wrote a best-selling translation of The Tale of Genji and over 400 fictional biographical and historical novels.

Jakucho Setouchi was born Harumi Mitani on 15 May 1922 in Tokushima, Tokushima Prefecture to Toyokichi and Koharu Mitani.

Jakucho Setouchi studied Japanese literature at Tokyo Woman's Christian University before her arranged marriage to scholar Yasushi Sakai in 1943.

Jakucho Setouchi moved with her husband after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent him to Beijing, and gave birth to their daughter in 1944.

Jakucho Setouchi returned to Japan in 1946, settled with family in Tokyo in 1947, and in 1948, left her husband and daughter for a relationship with another man.

Jakucho Setouchi began to shift her novel writing focus to historical female writers and activists, eventually including Kanoko Okamoto, Toshiko Tamura, Sugako Kanno, Fumiko Kaneko, and Ito Noe.

Jakucho Setouchi was a pacifist and became an activist, including by participating in protests of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as anti-nuclear rallies in Fukushima after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, including an anti-nuclear hunger strike in 2012.

Jakucho Setouchi received the Tanizaki Prize for her novel Hana ni Toe in 1992, and was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 1997.

Jakucho Setouchi considered Prince Genji to be a plot device for the stories of the women of the court and used a contemporary version of Japanese for her translation.

Jakucho Setouchi received the Japanese Order of Culture in 2006.

Jakucho Setouchi wrote under the pen name "Purple", and in 2008 revealed she had written a cell phone novel titled Tomorrow's Rainbow.

Jakucho Setouchi died of heart failure in Kyoto, Japan, on 9 November 2021 at the age of 99.