This week: the story of Tsuneno, a commoner whose social status was very different from that of Lady Nijo and…
This week, the tale of Ogimachi Machiko–the aristocrat whose literary descriptions of her life in a samurai family became one…
This week: in 1940, a manuscript lost for over 600 years is recovered from the archives of the Imperial family.…
This week, the biography of one of the most unusual figures of Bakumatsu Japan: the peasant Matsuo Taseko, whose career…
This week: just what sort of scandal sent Nakanoin Nakako to the far end of Japan, and how did fate…
This week, we have a biography of one of the rare women of medieval Japan who was prominent not just…
Today, we’re taking a look at a fascinating literary text from 1000 years ago, the Kagero Nikki (most commonly translated…
This week, we cover the rest of the lives of Sugen’in, Joko’in, and Yodo-dono (and some other really fascinating incidental…
This week, we’re revisiting some well-trod ground (the final decades of the 1500s and the careers of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi)…
This week, we’re covering the life and career of a poet often overlooked despite her fame in her own lifetime:…