Name Etsu Sugimoto | Role Autobiographer | |
Died June 20, 1950, Echigo Province Books A daughter of the Samurai, A Daughter of the Nohfu, Collected English Works of Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto | ||
Etsuko Sugimoto (杉本 鉞子, Sugimoto Etsuko, 1874 – June 20, 1950), also known as Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, was a Japanese autobiographer and novelist. She was born in Echigo Province in Japan, now part of Niigata Prefecture. Her father had once been a high-ranking samurai official in Nagaoka, but with the breakdown of the feudal system shortly before her birth, the economic situation of her family took a turn for the worse.
Although originally destined to be a priestess, she became engaged, through an arranged marriage, to a Japanese merchant living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Etsu attended a Methodist school in Tokyo in preparation for her life in the USA, and became a Christian. In 1898 she journeyed to the USA, where she married her fiancé and became mother of two daughters. After her husband's death she returned to Japan, but later went back to the United States to complete the education of her daughters there.
Later she lived in New York City, where she turned to literature and taught Japanese language, culture and history at Columbia University. She also wrote for newspapers and magazines. She died in 1950.