Nobuko Yoshiya

Nobuko Yoshiya (吉屋信子, Yoshiya Nobuko, 12 January 1896 – 11 July 1973) was a Japanese novelist active in Taishō and Showa period of Japan. She was one of modern Japan's most commercially successful and prolific writers, specializing in serialized romance novels and adolescent girls' fiction, as well as a pioneer in Japanese lesbian literature, including the Class S genre. Several of her stories have been made into films.

Personal life

Yoshiya was born in Niigata prefecture, but grew up in Mooka and Tochigi cities in Tochigi prefecture. Her father was first a police officer and then became a local county government official, so her family relocated often to accommodate his transfers. She was the only daughter and youngest of five children in her family. Both her mother and her father came from samurai families. Her middle-class, culturally conservative parents trained her for the "good wife, wise mother" role expected of women in Meiji Japan. Her literary career began when she was in her teens, although prior to this she had developed a love for writing which sapped her time for learning domestic skills from her mother.