She was born in the village of Imajuku in Fukuoka Prefecture, the eldest daughter among seven siblings. Her family had once been seafood wholesalers but had already declined, and her mother supported the household with day labor and other work. It is said that in the early years of elementary school she was sent to live with an aunt to ease the burden on the family.
After finishing higher elementary school, she worked at the local post office to help the family finances while submitting poems and tanka to magazines. Meeting her aunt's family when they came home from Tokyo in summer strengthened her longing for the city, and she wrote to her uncle begging him, promising to become someone of note and repay him. At the end of that year she was welcomed to Tokyo.
After intense study she passed the transfer examination for Ueno Girls' High School, earning outstanding marks especially in composition. At this school she met Tsuji Jun, who was teaching English. Tsuji was well versed in literature and ideas, and she, hungry for learning, was greatly stimulated and came to feel strongly drawn to him.
On graduating and returning home, she found a marriage to a partner chosen by her parents already under way. She married reluctantly, but on the eighth day she left and headed back to Tokyo, beginning life with Tsuji. At Tsuji's urging she wrote to and visited Hiratsuka Raichō, and began attending the Seitō Society, a literary circle of women.
She made her mark by publishing poems and other works one after another in the magazine "Seitō." She grew close to the women called "new women" who gathered at the Seitō Society, such as Yosano Akiko and Okamoto Kanoko, and was strongly stimulated. That year her eldest son with Tsuji was born, and she spent her days writing while raising a child.
She took over from Hiratsuka Raichō the editing and publishing of "Seitō," which had been repeatedly banned and was struggling financially. Under the motto "no isms, no rules, no policy," she opened its pages to ordinary women too, turning it from a literary magazine into one where women debated how to live. Her second son was also born that year.
Sympathizing with anarchism, she began to act together with Osugi Sakae, and "Seitō" ceased publication. Parting from Tsuji, she left her family and work and began living with Osugi. But the complicated relationships surrounding Osugi led to the Hikage Chaya incident, in which he was stabbed and badly hurt by another woman, and she faced harsh public condemnation.
Her eldest daughter with Osugi was born. It is said that, turning around the insult of being called a "devil" by those around her, she named the girl "Mako," using the character for demon. Life was poor and she was watched by the police day after day, but her life with Osugi was fulfilling. She went on bearing and raising more children while continuing to write.
Together with Osugi she founded the magazine "Critique of Civilization," and the next year also founded "Labor Movement." They discussed society from the standpoint of working people and jointly published works such as studies of the Russian thinker Kropotkin. Writing side by side, the couple kept their wish to change society even amid hard living.
When the Sekirankai, a socialist women's group, was formed, she joined it together with Yamakawa Kikue and others. Around this time she also published writings calling for the awakening of working women and essays questioning the institution of marriage itself. These arguments have been praised as anticipating the ideas of the women's liberation movement some half a century later.
To study apart from Osugi, she returned to her home village of Imajuku with her young daughters. Around this time Osugi received an invitation to an international congress of anarchists to be held in Europe. At the end of that year Osugi secretly slipped out of Japan and headed for France by way of Shanghai.
In summer she welcomed Osugi back in Kobe, and afterward gave birth to a boy. In autumn, amid the continuing chaos after the Great Kantō Earthquake, she was taken away by military police together with Osugi and his young nephew, and lost her life in the Amakasu Incident. Her writings and way of life were later reconsidered, and it is said that in recent years people visit her hometown.
Yosano AkikoOsugi SakaeHiratsuka Raichō
Kikuchi KanKagawa ToyohikoKishida RyūseiKanakuri ShisōAkutagawa RyūnosukeIchikawa FusaeMiyazawa KenjiKaneko Misuzu
People of the Taishō period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.