Enchi, Fumiko

Japanese author born in Tokyo as Fumi Ueda. Her father, Kazutoshi Ueda, was a linguist and professor of classical Japanese literature; her storytelling grandmother, Ine Ueda, liked to perform in Kabuki drama. Enchi attended the Tokyo University for Women between 1918 and 1922, but as she had been a sickly child she had to cut interrupt her studies, and was instead tutored at home. Able to read in French, English and Chinese from an early age, she was particularly fond of Oscar Wilde, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe and Jun'ichirô Tanizaki; she was fascinated by the latter's sado-masochistic aesthetic.