Bøger af Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto

Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto was born into a samurai family in the years following the Meiji Restoration in 1868. In this autobiography, she recounts her experiences growing up in a culture with very strict expectations. As her family¿s influence and power wanes, a marriage is arranged for her and she leaves to join her future husband in America.Etsüs story is interleaved with explanations of Japanese culture, religion, and history. As she is exposed to more of the world outside of Japan, she must reconcile the differences between the traditions she grew up with and the ideas of her new homeland.

2023 Reprint of the 1925 U.S. Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Born in 1874 as the youngest daughter of a samurai and former daimyo-a feudal prince under shogunate rule-the author grew up surrounded by ghosts of an aristocratic military lineage. Having fought on the losing side in the wars that installed the Meiji emperor, her family was reduced in power, status, and wealth but not in pride or, nor in devotion to its traditional roles and customs. Etsu's upbringing and education were conservative and old-fashioned, guided by the Shinto and Buddhist beliefs held by her family. The samurai virtues of honor, stoicism, and sacrifice applied to daughters and wives as well as sons and fathers: "The eyelids of a samurai know not moisture." Family turmoil, including her father's death and the return of her prodigal brother, led her on another path-to an English-language mission school in Tokyo and an arranged marriage to a Japanese businessman in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she became mother to two daughters before being widowed and returning with them to Japan. Her story, as she tells it, is: "How a daughter of feudal Japan, living hundreds of years in one generation, became a modern American." The clash of cultures, the momentous and sometimes hilarious misunderstandings between Japanese and Western ways are revealed in intriguing intimate episodes involving love, duty, and family ties. Living between a semi-mythical past and an emergent international present, Mrs. Sugimoto recounts the personal impact of the profound social changes brought about by Japanese American relations during the Meiji period (1868-1912) and offers an unexpected insider's view of traditional Japanese samurai family life as it is in the process of being swept away.

A Daughter of the Samurai is written by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto. Her story, as Sugimoto tells it, is: ?How a daughter of feudal Japan, living hundreds of years in one generation, became a modern American.? In this book, intriguing intimate episodes involving love, duty, and family ties are revealed even as there was clash of cultures and misunderstandings between Japanese and Western ways. While living between a semi-mythical past and a resurgent international scenario, the author recounts the personal impact of the profound social changes brought about by Japanese-American relations during the Meiji period. Sugimoto offers an insider?s view of traditional Japanese samurai family life as it is in the process of being brushed off.Although the book contains several chapters, it starts with author?s description of Japan. In the very first chapter ?Winters in Echigo,? Sugimoto tells, Japan is often called by foreign people a land of sunshine and cherry blossoms. Among her delicate and significant anecdotes, she tells of the Japanese fiancée whose betrothed had a plum-blossom as his family crest.

"Her life was a bridge from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, from the time-hallowed beauty and rigidity of a samurai household to the disorienting, forward-looking freedoms of the West." --Janice P. Nimura, from the foreword. This is the story of one woman's remarkable life successfully navigating two very different cultures--the first memoir of an Asian-American woman. Beautifully told, this immigrant's account of an unforgettable journey is the story of a headstrong and empowered woman--a loyal wife, a widowed mother and a bilingual breadwinner--finding her way and finding her voice in a strange new world. Follow in her footsteps and trace the remarkable trajectory of her life as she: Witnesses her father prepare and perform the ritual seppuku and her mother burn down the family homeBids an emotional farewell and sails across the ocean to marry a wealthy merchant in a new landReturns to Tokyo with her two daughters and mother-in-law, only to find her homeland just as alien as America, forcing her to reinvent herself again in order to provide for her familyReturns to America with her children following the death of her mother-in-lawAn international bestseller when it was first published a century ago, A Daughter of the Samurai emerges as a rare testament to a singular woman's resolve, strength and endurance. This edition features a new foreword by 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist Janice P. Nimura.

A Daughter of the Samurai (1925) is an autobiography by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto. Born in Japan, she was sent to the United States to fulfill an arranged marriage with a Japanese merchant. Raised in a family whose prominence had fallen toward the end of the feudal era, Sugimoto gained a unique perspective on Japanese life that would shape her literary career and outlook as a professor at New York's Columbia University. "Japan is often called by foreign people a land of sunshine and cherry blossoms. [...] In the province of Echigo, where was my home, winter usually began with a heavy snow which came down fast and steady until only the thick, round ridge-poles of our thatched roofs could be seen." Born and raised in a northern province of Japan, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto came from a family of high-ranking samurai officials. Originally prepared to live as a priestess, Etsu became the center of her father's attention when her brother eloped and left for America. No longer financially stable, Sugimoto's father depended on his children to secure their family's future. Soon, he arranged for his daughter to marry a successful merchant living in Ohio, sending her to Tokyo to study at a Methodist school. Then, she made the journey across the ocean to start a new life in America.Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

A young Japanese woman leaves the only home she’s ever known for married life in nineteenth-century Ohio in this delightful, charming memoir, a tribute to the struggles of the first generation of Japanese immigrants—with an introduction by Karen Tei Yamashita and Yuki Obayashi    The youngest daughter of a high-ranking samurai in late-nineteenth-century Japan, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto is originally destined to be a Buddhist priestess. She grows up a curly haired tomboy in snowy Echigo, certain of her future role in her community. But as a young teenager, she is instead engaged to a Japanese merchant in Ohio—and Etsu realizes she will eventually have to leave the only world she has ever known for the United States. Etsu arrives in Cincinnati as a bright-eyed and observant twenty-four-year-old, puzzled by the differences between the two cultures and alive to the contradictions, ironies, and beauties of both. Her memoir, reprinted for the first time in decades, is an unforgettable story of a strong and determined woman.The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.