ENCHI FUMIKO

   Enchi Fumiko was a female writer famous for exploring female psychology and sexuality. Of poor health as a child, Enchi was educated through private tutors and introduced to the Japanese classics by her grandmother. Her literary career began in the 1920s when she wrote stage plays sympathizing with the proletarian literature movement. She won an award from the Society of Women Writers for her novel Himojii tsukihi (Days of Hunger, 1954) and the Noma Prize for Onnazaka (1957; tr. The Waiting Years, 1971). She was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in 1985 and died of a heart attack in 1986.

   See also FEMINISM; MODERN THEATER; WOMEN IN LITERATURE.