The Thirteenth Night is a short story that follows Oseki Harada, a woman married to an abusive man. She leaves her home, leaving her child behind, in order to seek permission from her parents for a divorce. Ichiyō Higuchi's harsh honesty about the problems of late nineteenth-century life in Japan, and her detailed descriptions of both scenery and what is going on in each character's mind, fit the story into the genre of poetic realism. Higuchi's piece is also a major contribution to fiction of the era on the condition of women. The Thirteenth Night first appeared in the December 1895 edition of Bungei kurabu magazine, a special issue devoted to female writers. It received positive reviews for its language and polished style. Ichiyō Higuchi (1872-1896) was a Japanese writer from the Meiji Period. She was Japan's first professional female writer of modern literature, specialising in short stories and poetry, and also an extensive diarist.
Author
See also 樋口 一葉. Pen name of poet and writer Natsu Higuchi. She studied at the Haginosha school of poetry run by Utako Nakajima and showed talent from early on. After her father’s death in 1889, she began writing novels to make a living, but she also had a sideline business, a general merchandise store, because she could not survive on income from writing alone. In less than a year from the end of 1894, she successively published such masterpieces as Otsugumori (The Last Day of the Year), Take Kurabe (Comparing Heights), Nigorie (Troubled Waters), and Jusanya (13th Night). She died at the young age of 24 from tuberculosis. Her image currently appears on the Japanese 5000-yen banknote.
