Uno Chiyo rose to fame in 20th century Japan as a writer, designer, domestic goddess, and fashion icon – mostly by marketing herself as just a scandalous woman. But this “Bad Girl of Good Housekeeping” was so much more than just a writer of sexy stories.
Guest Rebecca Copeland helps Olivia uncover the secrets of this enigmatic, fascinating woman.
All photos courtesy of Rebecca Copeland unless otherwise indicated
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Rebecca Copeland is a professor of Japanese literature at Washington University in St. Louis where her teaching and research focus on modern women writers. Among the many women writers she has studied, Uno Chiyo (1897-1996) is paramount. Copeland’s The Sound of the Wind: The Life and Works of Uno Chiyo (University of Hawai’i Press, 1992) is the first monograph on the writer in any language. Her translation of Uno’s autobiographical novel The Story of a Single Woman, published by Peter Owen, Ltd. in 1922, was re-issued by Pushkin Press in 2025. Copeland’s translation of Uno’s 1935 short story “Parting Pleasure” (Wakare mo tanoshi) is scheduled for release in 2025. In addition to Uno Chiyo, Copeland has published on and translated works by late-nineteenth-century women writers and the twenty-first-century writer, Kirino Natsuo (b. 1951). Heading into retirement, Copeland has turned her attention to writing fiction. The Kimono Tattoo (2021) is her first novel.
Music featured in this episode by
Hirano Aiko, JackJack9, Zac Zinger, Doug Maxwell, the Mini Vandals, Bounce Bay Records, and Kumi
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