Ichiyō Higuchi

Ichiyō Higuchi (樋口 一葉, Higuchi Ichiyō^?, May 2, 1872 – November 23, 1896) was the pen name of Japanese author Natsu Higuchi (樋口 奈津, Higuchi Natsu^?), also known as Natsuko Higuchi (樋口 夏子, Higuchi Natsuko^?). Specializing in short stories, she was one of the first important writers to appear in the Meiji period (1868–1912) and Japan's first prominent woman writer of modern times. She wrote relatively little as a result of living a brief life—she died at 24—but her stories had a large impact on Japanese literature and she is still appreciated by the Japanese public today.

Higuchi was unique among her peers in that her writing was based on Japanese rather than Western models. Her work is highly regarded for her use of Classical Japanese language, and for that reason people are reluctant to update or translate it into contemporary Japanese, leaving it difficult for the majority of Japanese people to read.

She was born in Tokyo, with the name Natsuko Higuchi. Her parents had come to the capital from a farming community in a nearby province. Her father struggled to buy a lower-rank samurai position, then lost it, worked for the municipal government, but was let go, and then invested all the family's savings in a business venture which failed.

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