Seiko Tanabe

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Seiko Tanabe (田辺聖子) was a Japanese writer, translator, and critic born on March 27, 1928, in Osaka. She studied Japanese literature and wrote many novels, essays, biographies, and translations, often reflecting Osaka life and its dialect. Her 1964 novel Kanshō ryokō (Sentimental Journey) won the Akutagawa Prize. She also published works such as Uba-zakari (1981) and Hinekure Issa (1993), and she translated and adapted classic Japanese texts like The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book. In 1966 she married Sumio Kawano after his wife Shōko Kawano’s death, and they lived in Osaka before moving to Itami, Hyōgo. Tanabe received several major honors, including the Yomiuri Prize, the Asahi Prize, and in 2000 she was named a Person of Cultural Merit, later receiving the Order of Culture in 2008. She passed away on June 6, 2019, in Kobe, from ascending cholangitis, at the age of 91.