Among the names regularly included in the canon of modem Japanese literature is that of Hayashi Fumiko (1903-1951), a successful writer from the early 1930s until the time of her death. Very little of her work is read today, although paperback editions of her three most famous works, Horoki (Diary of a Vagabond, 1930), Ukigumo (Drifting Clouds, 1949), and Meshi L, (Food, 1951),2 are still readily available in most bookstores, and on occasion a collection of her works is published in a one volume set, as was recently done by Chikuma shobo in its collection of Japanese literature.
Except for these publications, though, Fumiko’s writing has fallen into relative obscurity; when her works are mentioned by scholars, it is either to note her treatment of the lower classes in Horoki or because she falls into the category of joryu sakka.
There is a large collection of writing on the subject of Fumiko's life, indeed much more than what has been written about her literature. The fascination with Fumiko's life is understandable, given the fact that her first and possibly most successful work was the autobiographical novel Horoki. Since its publication, readers have been eager to know more about die life portrayed on its pages. And despite the fact that soon after the success of Horoki Fumiko earned enough from royalties to permanently remove herself from the life of poverty for which she had become famous, she is to this day most often remembered as someone who lived a hard life.
One of the problems with this is that the information provided in Horoki and other autobiographical works is not always a faithful record of real events as recorded both by the author herself in essays and other miscellany and by those who knew her during her lifetime. The result is a large collection of conflicting information which itself has become the subject of various studies.1 While I feel it is important to know about the life influences of any writer, I should like to avoid the mire of conflicting facts that surround Fumiko as much as possible, and so here I acknowledge that the body of my biography is based on one main source: the annotated chronological table compiled by Imagawa Eiko, which is published in Volume 16 of the Bunsendo Hayashi Fumiko zenshu? Other sources, when used, are appropriately cited.
I chose Imagawa's table for two reasons: first, it is much more detailed than other tables of its kind, which leads me to believe that it was more carefully compiled; second, while none of the chronological tables contain bibliographic notes, making it difficult to check their accuracy, Imagawa's has proved consistent with what cross checks I have run on dates and other facts. On the other hand, I do not claim that Imagawa's table is the authoritative source above all other sources;3 it simply is one of the best choices for a brief overview of the author's life. That said, let us look at what sort of life Hayashi Fumiko led.
Источник: "Hayashi Fumiko: The Writer and Her Works", A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Susanna Fessler, May 1994
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