Biography
Born in Kyoto, Yuasa was an early supporter of the feminist movement in late Taishō and early Shōwa period Japan. Moving to Tokyo, she was also drawn to leftist political movements and became involved with leading female proletarian literature movement novelist Nakajo Yuriko. In 1924, after Nakajo divorced her husband, the two women began to live together, and from 1927–1930, traveled together to the Soviet Union, where they studied the Russian language and Russian literature and developed a friendship with noted movie director Sergei Eisenstein.
Evidence suggests that the relationship between Yuasa and Nakajo was a romantic if not sexual one. While Yuasa has also been romantically linked to writer Tamura Toshiko among others, Nakajo is said to have been the love of her life. Yuasa was never again romantically linked to another woman after Nakajo's marriage to proletarian author and Japan Communist Party leader Miyamoto Kenji, though in an interview late in life Yuasa said that the word "lesbian" (rezubian/レズビアン) applied to her.
After their return to Japan and Nakajo remarried, Yuasa continued with her translation work of Russian authors, especially the works of Maxim Gorky, Anton Chekhov and Samuil Marshak. She is especially known for her translation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Yuasa died in 1990, and her grave is at Tōkei-ji, a temple in Kamakura.
Read more about this topic: Yuasa Yoshiko
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