Izumi Kyōka

Izumi Kyōka,
pseudonym of Izumi Kyōtarō (b. Nov. 4, 1873,
Kanazawa, Japan—d. Sept. 7, 1939, Tokyo), prolific
Japanese writer who created a distinctive, often
supernatural fictional world.
Kyōka was born into
a family of provincial artists and artisans. He went
to Tokyo in 1890, hoping to be accepted as a
disciple of Ozaki Kōyō, the leader of the literary
scene at that time, but he was too shy to announce
his presence. The next year he summoned up the
courage to meet Kōyō and was immediately taken in as
a houseboy. He lived with Kōyō until 1894. In return
for cleaning the house and performing errands, he
was given careful instruction by Kōyō, who went over
every word in Kyōka’s manuscripts.
Kyōka’s first
successful work, “Giketsu kyōketsu” (1894; “Noble
Blood, Heroic Blood”), is melodramatic and
implausible, but the characters are so vivid that
the story was easily turned into a play. “Yakō
junsa” (1895; “Night Patrolman”) and “Gekashitsu”
(1895; “Surgical Room”) are short works that depict
persons who are so moved by their convictions that
they perform unbelievable acts of self-sacrifice.
Kōya hijiri (1900; “The Holy Man of Mount Kōya”)
gives full play to Kyōka’s fascination with the
weird and the mysterious.
In 1899 Kyōka met a
geisha whom he later married. In Yushima mōde (1899;
“Worship at Yushima”), one of his most popular
works, he described the world of the geisha, which
reappeared in important works such as Onna keizu
(1907; “A Woman’s Pedigree”) and “Uta andon” (1910;
“A Song Under Lanterns”; Eng. trans. “The Song of
the Troubadour”). Kyōka remained aloof from
contemporary changes in literary taste, writing for
devoted followers and refusing to abandon his highly
individual art. Japanese Gothic Tales (1996),
translated into English by Charles Shirō Inouye,
contains four of Kyōka’s stories together with an
extended discussion of his art.