Lafcadio Hearn

Yakumo Koizumi

Lafcadio Hearn
Yakumo Koizumi
Real name: Patrick Lafcadio Hearn. (1850-1904) Born in Greece.
Educated in Britain and France, at 19 he crossed alone to the U.S.
While working as a newspaper journalist, he encountered Japanese culture and became interested in it.
In 1890, at the age of 40, he visited Japan as a special correspondent. He became an English teacher in Shimane Prefecture.
Then, after working at Fifth High School in Kumamoto and as a journalist for the Kobe Chronicle, he held successive posts as lecturer at the College of Letters at the Imperial University and Waseda University.
In his private life, he married Koizumi Setsu, and changed his name to Koizumi Yakumo. He was naturalized in Japan in 1896.
He introduced the heart and customs of Japan to the world. He showed his ability as a story-teller with “Kwaidan (ghost stories)” based on Japanese legends.
Among them, his works “Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan” and “Out of the East” emerged after three years of living in Kumamoto from 1891.
Hearn loved the pure culture of Japan, and was inspired by the people, including Kano Jigoro, whom he met.
Living in the modern-era city of Kumamoto, where Western food was eaten too, greatly influenced his work and life.

His main works after arriving in Japan

● Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan-1894 年
● Out of the East- 1895 年
● Kokoro- 1896 年
● A Living God-1896 年
● Gleanings in Buddha-Fields-1897 年
● Exotics and Retrospectives-1898 年
● In Ghostly Japan-1899 年
● Shadowings-900 年
● A Japanese Miscellany-1901 年
● Kotto-1902 年
● kwaidan-1904 年
● Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation-1904 年
● The Romance of the Milky Way and other studies and stories-1905 年