Said to have been born into a townsman family in Osaka (details debated).
Around this time he began studying haikai, later joining Nishiyama Sōin's Danrin school and composing free, unconventional verse.
His wife died young, and he mourned her by composing a thousand verses alone in a single day.
He set great records in yakazu haikai, contests of how many verses one could compose in a day and night; later he reportedly composed over 20,000 in one session.
His novel Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko was a great success, regarded as the start of ukiyo-zōshi, lively fiction about townspeople's lives and feelings.
He wrote Kōshoku Gonin Onna, portraying five women who lived for love, based on real incidents.
He wrote Nippon Eitaigura, describing how merchants built and lost their fortunes.
He wrote Seken Munezan'yō, depicting with humour townspeople hounded by debt collectors on New Year's Eve.
He died in Osaka. His death verse says that, in an age when life was reckoned at fifty years, he had gazed on the world's moon two years too long.
Kaibara EkikenShibukawa HarumiKeichūTokugawa IetsunaSeki TakakazuMatsuo BashōTokugawa TsunayoshiChikamatsu Monzaemon
People of the Edo period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.