Japan's outspoken nun and author Jakucho Setouchi dies at 99
ABC News
Jakucho Setouchi, a Buddhist nun and one of Japan’s best-known authors known for novels depicting passionate women and her translation of “The Tale of Genji” into modern language, has died
TOKYO -- Jakucho Setouchi, a Buddhist nun and one of Japan's best-known authors known for novels depicting passionate women and her translation of “The Tale of Genji,” a 1,000-year-old classic, into modern language, has died. She was 99.
Setouchi was already an established novelist before she shaved her head and became a nun at age 51. She was mostly based at a small temple in Kyoto, where she wrote hundreds of books from biographical novels to romance, often depicting women defying traditional roles.
Even in her late 90s, she was active in writing and giving talks, but her health declined recently and she had been treated at a hospital in Kyoto, where she died on Tuesday of heart failure, according to her temple, Jakuan.
Born Harumi Setouchi in 1922 in the city of Tokushima on the southwestern main island of Shikoku, she debuted in 1957 and has since published more than 400 books. Many of her stories of independent and somewhat rebellious women won many female readers.