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Tokiko Matsuda

まつだ ときこ

Matsuda Tokiko

Pen Names: Hana Onuma（Birth name）

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1905-07-18 （Arakawa Village, Semboku District, Akita Prefecture, Japan）
Died
2004-12-26 age 99
Nationality
Japan
Languages
Japanese

Career

Occupations
Novelist, Poet, Children's author, Writer
Active Years
1928-2004
Affiliations
New Japanese Literature Association, Japan Democratic Literary Association
Influenced By
Labor movement, Proletarian literature movement
Influenced
Tetsuro Onuma (son, documentary filmmaker)

Education

Akita Women's Normal School
Main Course, Second Division (one-year program)
Period: 1923-1924
Year of Graduation: 1924
Country: Japan
Completed a one-year normal school course.

Awards

Tamura Toshiko Prize
Work: Orin Koden
Result: Winner
Takiji & Yuriko Prize
Work: Orin Koden
Result: Winner
Yomiuri Newspaper Women's New Short Story Contest - Selected
1928
Work: Umu ("To Give Birth")
Organization: Yomiuri Shimbun
Result: Selected

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Orin Koden

1966 Novel

A long novel based on the life of the author's mother. Through the lives of mother and daughter it depicts aspects of capitalism's development and social reform movements in early 20th-century Japan; the centerpiece of a trilogy.

Mother-child relationshipLabor and capitalismSocial reformMining communities

Orin: Mother and Child Account

1974 Novel

A continuation in the series on mother and child, depicting family and historical backgrounds from the mother's perspective and portraying community life and women's experiences.

Family historyWomen's laborCommunity change

The Typist with a Peach-Shaped Parting

1977 Fiction

Positioned as a continuation in the trilogy, this work examines women's occupations and social positions, depicting changing times through individual lives.

Women's workUrban life and occupationIndividual independence

Women's Suffering

1933 Novel

An early novel addressing social pressures and hardships faced by women.

GenderSocial oppressionPoverty

Selling Milk ("Chichi o Uru")

1929 Short story

A short story concerning poverty and motherhood. One of her early notable pieces; first appeared in a magazine and later reprinted.

PovertyMotherhoodWomen's labor

People of the Earth (The Underground People)

1972 Fiction

One of the works themed on mining and laborers, portraying people's lives from perspectives of region and labor.

Mining laborCommunityLivelihood and daily life

Bibliography

  • Women's Suffering (Novel) — 1933
  • To the Patient Ones (Poetry) — 1935
  • Women's Line (Long Novel) — 1937
  • With Children — 1938
  • The Foolish Feast — 1940
  • Topics of Women — 1940
  • Wandering Forest — 1940
  • Meditations on Flowers — 1940
  • A Woman's Dream — 1941
  • Shadow of the Teacher — 1941
  • Morning Mist — 1942
  • Passion of the Sea (Novel) — 1942
  • Notes of a Farming Woman — 1944
  • Orin Koden (Parts I & II) — 1966-1968
  • Daughters of the Mine (Poetry) — 1972
  • Selling Milk — 1972 (collected)
  • People of the Earth — 1972
  • Throbbing Postwar — 1973
  • To Days That Are Not Yet — 1973
  • Orin: Mother and Child Account — 1974
  • The Typist... (Sequel to Orin Mother and Child Account) — 1977
  • Forest of Recollections — 1979
  • The Cherry Trees Within You — 1981
  • Collected Poems of Tokiko Matsuda — 1985
  • Song of the Mountain Cherry — 1985
  • Poems of the Feet — 1987
  • Listening to the Earth — 1987
  • On Living and Literature — 1988
  • Tokiko Matsuda Short Stories — 1989
  • Women Bearing Tomorrow — 1992
  • Still Walking: My Life and Literature — 1995
  • Women's Recollections — 2000
  • Tokiko Matsuda Selected Works (10 vols.) — collected edition
  • The Pink Dubdub: Children's Stories — 2004
  • Selling Milk / Morning Mist (Kodansha Bungei Bunko) — 2005 (edition)

Adaptations

  • 1929: "Zen Josei Shinshutsu Koshinkyoku" was set to music by Kosaku Yamada and recorded (a piece adopted from a magazine contest).

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Realist depictionSocial critique from a female perspectiveLyrical poetic expression (in poetry collections)
Recurring Motifs
Mother-child bondsLabor and mining communitiesWomen's work and livelihoodRural life and modernization

Legacy

Tokiko Matsuda is regarded for depicting labor and the transformations of capitalism in early 20th-century Japan through the lives of her mother and herself. Her Orin trilogy, written from a woman's perspective about community and labor, earned literary recognition (including the Tamura Toshiko and Takiji & Yuriko Prizes). She continued writing into old age and is considered an important author for women's and labor histories.

Academic Societies

  • New Japanese Literature Association
  • Japan Democratic Literary Association

Trivia

  • Birth name: Hana Onuma.
  • In 1928 her short story "Umu" was selected in a Yomiuri Shimbun contest for women writers.
  • She received the Tamura Toshiko Prize and the Takiji & Yuriko Prize for "Orin Koden" (years not specified in source material).
  • Her eldest son is documentary filmmaker Tetsuro Onuma.
  • Died in 2004 at the age of 99.