Fumiko Hayashi (author)

Fumiko Hayashi (林 芙美子, Hayashi Fumiko^?, December 31, 1903 or 1904 (Japanese sources disagree on the birth year) – June 28, 1951) was a Japanese novelist and poet.

Hayashi was born in Shimonoseki, Japan. When Hayashi was seven, her mother ran away with a manager of her common-law husband's store, and afterwards the three worked in Kyūshū as itinerant merchants. After graduating from high school in 1922, Hayashi moved to Tokyo with a lover and lived with several men until settling into marriage with the painter Rokubin Tezuka (手塚 緑敏^?) in 1926.

Many of her works revolve around themes of free spirited women and troubled relationships. One of her best-known works is Hōrōki (translated into English as "Vagabond's Song" or "Diary of a Vagabond") (放浪記, 1927), which was adapted into the anime Wandering Days. Another is her late novel Ukigumo (Floating Clouds, 1951), which was made into a movie by Mikio Naruse in 1955. Naruse filmed several of her books, and also directed a biographical film about her in 1962, Horoki (A Wanderer's Notebook).

Hayashi's work is notable as well for its feminist themes. She was later to face criticism for accepting sponsored-trips by the Japanese military government to occupied China, from where she reported positively on Japanese administration. In 1942-43, as part of a larger group of women writers, she also travelled to Southeast Asia, spending around half a year, primarily in Java and Sumatra. Some of her activities were reported in both the local Indonesian presses, as well as in Japan.

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