was a
Japanese novelist and poet.
Biography
Early life
Sakae Tsuboi was born in the village of Sakate (now part of the town of
Shōdoshima) in
Kagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kagawa Prefecture has a population of 949,358 (as of 2020) and is the smallest prefecture by geographic area at . Kagawa Prefecture borders Ehime Prefecture to the southwest and Tok ...
, the fifth daughter of
soy sauce
Soy sauce (also called simply soy in American English and soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermented paste of soybeans, roasted grain, brine, and ''Aspergillus oryzae'' or '' As ...
barrel maker, Tokichi Iwai. Despite the bankruptcy of her father's employer, and the consequent worsening of her family's economic situation, she was still able to complete eight years of schooling, before going on to work in the post office and town hall. In 1925, at the age of 26, she went to Tokyo to marry
Shigeji Tsuboi.
Career
After the publication of her debut work ''Daikon no Ha'' (Radish Leaves) in 1938, she wrote prolifically, winning the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts among other prizes. In 1954 the director
Keisuke Kinoshita
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi an ...
made a film adaptation, starring
Hideko Takamine, of her 1952 novel, ''Nijushi no Hitomi'' (
Twenty-Four Eyes
is a 1954 Japanese drama film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Sakae Tsuboi. The film stars Hideko Takamine as a schoolteacher named Hisako Ōishi, who lives during the rise and fall of Japanese nati ...
), and
Shodoshima became a household name in Japan. In 1967, she was made an honorary citizen of
Uchinomi, Kagawa
was a former town in Shōzu District, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. The town was created in 1949 by merging villages on the eastern part of Shōdoshima, an island in the Seto Inland Sea. In 2006, Uchinomi was dissolved and merged with the town of Ike ...
before dying the same year at the age of 67.
Sakae Tsuboi Prize
In 1979, to honour Tsuboi's work, Kagawa Prefecture established the Sakae Tsuboi Prize for children from the prefecture.
Important works
*''Daikon no Ha'' (大根の葉 Radish Leaves)
*''Kaki no Ki no Aru Ie'' (柿の木のある家 The House with the Persimmon Tree)
*''Haha no Nai Ko to Ko no Nai Haha to'' (母のない子と子のない母と The Motherless Children and the Childless Mother)
*''Sakamichi'' (坂道 The Slope)
*''Nijushi no Hitomi'' (二十四の瞳 Twenty-Four Eyes) - (the only work readily available in English translation) The most famous of her works, adapted into two movies (
Twenty-Four Eyes
is a 1954 Japanese drama film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Sakae Tsuboi. The film stars Hideko Takamine as a schoolteacher named Hisako Ōishi, who lives during the rise and fall of Japanese nati ...
), numerous TV series and one animation series.
*''Kaze'' (風 The Wind)
*''Ishiusu no Uta'' (石臼の歌 The Song of Millstone)
*''Tsukiyo no Kasa'' (月夜の傘 Umbrella on a Moonlit Night)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsuboi, Sakae
1899 births
1967 deaths
20th-century Japanese novelists
Japanese women novelists
Japanese women poets
20th-century Japanese poets
20th-century Japanese women writers
Writers from Kagawa Prefecture