was a Japanese social reformer, writer, and novelist. She advocated for victims of discrimination, most notably the

Burakumin is a name for a low-status social group in Japan. It is a term for ethnic Japanese people with occupations considered as being associated with , such as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, or tanners. During Japan's ...

. She is best known for her novel, .

Early life

Sumii attended and graduated Haramoto Women's High School, receiving a degree as a teacher. At the age of 18, she moved to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and worked for the publisher,

Kodansha is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', ''Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' an ...

. After a couple of years, Sumii left Kodansha due to discriminatory treatment and working conditions of women.

Career

During the time with her husband and children, Sumii started writing short stories and publishing novels based on the lives of young people associated with ''nomin bungaku'', or the agrarian literature movement. In 1954, her work for Yoake asaake (“Dawn-Daybreak”) was awarded the Mainichi Culture Prize. In 1957, Sumii's husband died. In the following year, 1958, she began writing the first volume of the seven-part novel ''Hashi no nai kawa'' (橋のない川 "The River with No Bridge"), which focused on the fate of the discriminated Burakumin. Her work was first published in Buraku, the magazine of the Buraku Mondai Kenkyusho or Buraku Study Group. After its success, it was then published in hardcover in 1961. ''Hashi no nai kawa'' has sold over eight million copies and has been turned into a film twice, one being the 1992 version directed by

Yōichi Higashi is a Japanese film director. He began his career working on documentaries at Iwanami Productions but, after going independent, turned to fiction film. He won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award for '' Yasashii Nipponjin'' in 1971, ...

. An English translated version, ''

The River with No Bridge is a 1992 Japanese film directed by Yōichi Higashi based on the novel by Sue Sumii. Cast *Naoko Otani as Fude Hatanaka * Tamao Nakamura as Nui Hatanaka *Tetta Sugimoto is a Japanese actor. Career Sugimoto was first a member of a rock band ...

'', was published in 1992., An Italian translation, ''Il fiume senza ponti'', was published in 2016 by Atmosphere libri.

Personal life

In 1921, Sumii married Shigeru Inuta, a literary activist of the proletarian agrarian movement, which produced “peasant literature,” protecting poor farmers. In 1935, they moved to Inuta's birthplace, Hitachino, in the

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

, where they farmed the land. They had four children; two sons and two daughters.

Death

At the age of 95, Sumii died on June 16, 1997. Before her death she was working on the eighth part of ''Hashi no nai kawa''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sumii, Sue Japanese novelists 1902 births 1997 deaths