Early Women Writers

Lady Nijo (Go-Fukakusa-in Nijo)

Heian-kyo (modern day Kyoto)

1258 - after 1306

While Lady Nijo's parents had close ties to the imperial household -- her father, Koga Masatada, was an imperial adviser, and her mother, Sukedai, was Emperor Go-Fukakusa's lover. Her confessions recount her father giving her to Go-Fukakusa as a concubine in the tradition of yukari, where she would be a substitute for a lost lover -- her deceased mother. The early death of her father shortly after left Lady Nijo in a precarious position in court, which she chronicled in Towazugatari. [Source:Mulhern, Chieko Irie. Japanese Women Writers: a Bio-critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.]

Towazukatari (The Confessions of Lady Nijo, An Unasked-For Tale), Poetry

Japanese

Diary/Memoir, Poetry

Brazell, Karen. tr. The Confessions of Lady Nijo. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1973. ; McCullough, Helen. tr. "The Confessions of Lady Nijo." In Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1990.