UNO CHIYO

(1897–1996)

Uno Chiyo was a novelist and member of the Japan Art Academy. Raised in Yamaguchi Prefecture, she made her literary debut shortly after marrying by winning a novel-writing contest sponsored by a local newspaper. She then left her husband and young child to go to Tokyo to write. She published Irozange (tr. Confessions of Love, 1986) in 1935 to great acclaim. She finished the novel Ohan (1957; tr. Ohan, 1961) after 10 years’ labor, and it was later made into a film. While in Tokyo, she was involved in design, editing, and business, had several failed marriages with famous writers, and stopped writing until the 1960s, when she took up the pen once more. Uno was awarded the Women’s Literature Prize (1970), the Japan Art Academy Prize (1972), the Kikuchi Kan Prize (1982), and the Order of Cultural Merit (1990). She died of pneumonia in a Tokyo hospital at the age of 98.