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 Shōdoshima or is an island located in the Seto Inland Sea, Inland Sea of Japan. The name means "Island of Azuki bean, Small Beans". There are two towns on the island: Tonoshō, Kagawa, Tonoshō and Shodoshima, Kagawa, Shōdoshima, composing the ...

) in

Kagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kagawa Prefecture has a population of 949,358 (as of 2020) and is the List of Japanese prefectures by area, smallest prefecture by geographic area at . Kagawa Pr ...

, the fifth daughter of

soy sauce Soy sauce (sometimes called soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of China, Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermentation (food), fermented paste of soybeans, roasted cereal, grain, brine, and ''Aspergillus oryzae'' or ''A ...

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 and ...

made a film adaptation, starring

Hideko Takamine was a Japanese actress who began as a child actress and maintained her fame in a career that spanned 50 years. She is particularly known for her collaborations with directors Mikio Naruse and Keisuke Kinoshita, with ''Twenty-Four Eyes'' (1954) a ...

, of her 1952 novel, ''Nijushi no Hitomi'' ( Twenty-Four Eyes), and Shodoshima became a household name in Japan. In 1967, she was made an honorary citizen of Uchinomi, Kagawa 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), 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