User:Willa39/Fumiko Enchi

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Fumiko Enchi (円地 文子) was the pen-name of Fumiko Ueda, one of the most prominent Japanese women writers in the Shōwa period of Japan. As a writer, Enchi is best known for her explorations into the ideas of sexuality, gender, human identity, and spirituality.

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Of poor health as a child, she was unable to attend classes in school on a regular basis, so her father decided to keep her at home. She was taught English, French and Chinese literature through private tutors. She was also strongly influenced by her paternal grandmother, who introduced her to the Japanese classics such as The Tale of Genji, as well as to Edo period gesaku novels and to the kabuki and bunraku theater. A precocious child, at age 13, her reading list included the works of Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Kyōka Izumi, Kafū Nagai, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, and especially Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, whose sado-masochistic aestheticism particularly fascinated her. As a child she also gained access to many rare books when Basil Hall Chamberlain, a mentor in linguistics to her father, donated his entire library to the family before leaving the country in 1910.