Tamura Toshiko was the pen name of Sato Toshi, an early modern feminist novelist. Tamura studied writing with Koda Rohan and with Okamoto Kido. After becoming a best-selling writer in Japan with such works as Akirame (Resignation, 1911), Miira no kuchibeni (Lip Rouge on a Mummy, 1913), and Onna sakusha (Woman Writer, 1913), she left her husband and moved to Canada for 18 years with her lover, journalist Suzuki Etsu. She also lived in China for the final years of her life, where she edited a literary magazine until her death of a brain hemorrhage. Her posthumous royalties were used to establish a literary prize for women authors.
See also WOMEN IN LITERATURE.
Historical dictionary of modern Japanese literature and theater. J. Scott Miller. 2009.