「返らぬ少女の日のゆめに咲きし花のかずかずをいとしき君達へおくる」
"I send to you, my dear ones, a bouquet of flowers that bloom in the dream of a girl who will never return."

吉屋 信子　女史 
Ms. Nobuko Yoshiya
1896 - 1973
新潟県新潟市営所通り　生誕
Born in Eisyo-Street of Nigata-city, Nigata-ken

吉屋 信子女史は少女小説・同性愛文学の草分けです。代表作『花物語』『良人の貞操』で女学生はじめあらゆる世代の女性を魅了。当時の女性観・女性蔑視・女子教育の実態を描きつつ、日本の父権社会また男女間の恋愛への懐疑ならびに女性の同性愛を正面から論じたフェミニズム文学の先駆者です。
Nobuko Yoshiya is a pioneer in girls' novels and homosexual literature. Her masterpieces ``Flower Story'' and ``Good Man's Chastity'' captivated women of all generations, including schoolgirls. She is a pioneer of feminist literature, portraying the reality of women's views, misogyny, and girls' education at the time, as well as squarely discussing Japan's patriarchal society, skepticism about love between men and women, and female homosexuality. 

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「人のために働いた偉い人」
信子は５人兄弟の唯一の娘として新潟県庁官舎で生まれます。父・雄一と母・マサの兄弟５人の中で唯一の女児として生まれます。父・雄一は新潟で県警に務めた後に郡長となって一家で佐土・新発田・真岡・下都賀郡に移り住みます。信子は真岡小学校に入学。近くにキリスト教会があり、信子は牧師の娘たちと親しくなって日曜学校に熱心に通い始めます。この頃、父・雄一は渡良瀬川鉱毒問題にあたり、政府側（古河財閥の足尾銅山側）と農民側の間に挟まり苦悩します。吉屋家には農民側がをしばしば訪れたり、田中正造が直接交渉に赴いたり、緊迫したやり取りを信子は目撃します。やがて、父・雄一は度重なる政府への上申も空しく、谷中村を水底に沈めるため強制土地買収・強制立ち退きの執行官吏として現地に派遣されます。母は家族のすべての荷を引き受け、信子の幼い弟は疫痢にかかって危篤状態に陥り、父は弟が亡骸となってやっと帰宅するも家屋取り壊しのために谷中村に引き返します。これら一連の出来事は信子に強烈な記憶を残します。

「良妻賢母となるよりも」
信子は栃木高等女学校（現在の栃木県立栃木女子高等学校）に入学。新渡戸稲造の「良妻賢母となるよりも、まず一人のよい人間とならなければ」という演説に感銘を受け、少女雑誌に短歌や物語の投稿を始めます。信子は日光小学校代用教員となって家計を助け、まもなく兄弟の就職の目処が立つと父母の許しを得て上京、東京帝国大学に通う兄・忠明宅に身を寄せ作家を志します。信子は山田嘉吉・わか夫妻の「語学塾」「読書会」に参加して『青踏』のメンバーたちと交流を始めます。兄・忠明が外国に旅立つと東京四谷のバプテスト女子学寮に入り、近くの教会に通って婦人問題に関心を深めます。日曜学校の手伝いとして子ども相手に話した童話を集めた『赤い夢』を幼年雑誌「良友」に送り採用されてから、「良友」「幼年世界」に寄稿を続けて稿料を得るようになります。２０歳で「少女画報」編集部に送った「鈴蘭」が採用され『花物語』の１０年に渡る連載の開始、女学生から圧倒的な支持を受ける人気作家となります。神田の基督教女子青年会（ＹＷＣＡ）の寄宿舎に移り、津田塾や女子美術の学生たちの人脈を広げる中、父が逝去。信子は父の喪中に『屋根裏の二処女』を執筆、YMCAでの同性愛体験を基にしたで自らの同性愛体験を明かします。

「新しい女たちの世界」
日新聞の懸賞小説の応募するため、信子は北海道に勤務する兄・忠明宅に３月間こもって「地の果てまで」を執筆、24歳で文壇デビュー。秘書として採用した、お茶の水大学数学科卒業の才媛・門馬千代と相思相愛となり、作家が集う下落合に新居を建設して同居を始めます。２９歳のときに個人雑誌『黒薔薇』を刊行、女性の同性愛を正面から論じます。信子と千代は多額の印税をもとに２人で神戸港から満州、ソ連、ドイツを経由して一年近くフランスのパリに滞在、さらにアメリカ経由で帰国します。40歳で『良人の貞操』で男性の貞操ならびにジェンダーをめぐって大反響、映画・舞台でもブームを巻き起こします。戦時中には『主婦之友』特派員として中国から、「ペン部隊」女性役員としてインドネシア・ヴェトナム・タイなどから、従軍ルポルタージュを発表。並行して東京日日新聞・大阪毎日新聞に連載小説『女の教室』を執筆、戦争を介して古い男たちの世界を乗り越え、新しい女たちの世界を実現する様子を描きます。戦後は自然豊かな鎌倉に新居を建てて門野千代と晩年を共に暮らしながら、『徳川の夫人たち』『女人平家』など女性史を題材とした長編時代小説を執筆。７７歳で死去します。

"A great person who worked for others"
Nobuko was born in the Niigata Prefectural Office as the only daughter of five children. She was born as the only girl among five siblings to her father, Yuichi, and mother, Masa. After his father, Yuichi, served as a prefectural police officer in Niigata, he became the county chief and the family moved to Sato, Shibata, Moka, and Shimotsuga counties. Nobuko entered Moka Elementary School. There is a Christian church nearby, and Nobuko becomes friends with the pastor's daughters and begins attending Sunday school enthusiastically. Around this time, his father, Yuichi, was caught between the government side (the Ashio Copper Mine side of the Koga Zaibatsu) and the farmers side when it came to the Watarase River mine poisoning problem. Nobuko witnesses tense exchanges, with farmers often visiting the Yoshiya family, and Shozo Tanaka going directly to negotiations. Eventually, his father, Yuichi, repeatedly appeals to the government in vain, and is dispatched to the village as an executive officer for forced land acquisition and forced eviction in order to sink Yanaka Village into the depths of the water. Nobuko's mother took on all of the family's burdens, and Nobuko's younger brother contracted diarrhea and was in critical condition. Her father returned home only to find his younger brother dead, but had to return to Yanaka Village to have the house demolished. These series of events leave a strong memory on Nobuko.

“Rather than being a good wife and wise mother.”
Nobuko entered Tochigi Girls' High School (currently Tochigi Prefectural Tochigi Girls' High School). She was impressed by Inazo Nitobe's speech, ``Before becoming a good wife and wise mother, you must first become a good person,'' and she began submitting tanka and stories to girls' magazines. Nobuko helps her family finances by becoming a substitute teacher at Nikko Elementary School, and soon her brother has a job prospect, and with the permission of her parents, she moves to Tokyo, where her brother Tadaaki, who attends Tokyo Imperial University, goes to Tokyo Imperial University. Living at home, she aspires to become a writer. Nobuko attends the ``language school'' and ``book club'' run by Mr. and Mrs. Yoshikichi and Waka Yamada, and begins interacting with the members of ``Aotome''. When her older brother Tadaaki left for a foreign country, she entered a Baptist girls' dormitory in Yotsuya, Tokyo, where she attended a nearby church and developed an interest in women's issues. She collected fairy tales that she told to children as a Sunday school helper.She sent her book ``Red Dream'' to the children's magazine ``Yoyu,'' and it was accepted.After that, she continued to contribute to ``Yoshitomo'' and ``Children's World'' and received editorial fees. It will look like this. When she was 20 years old, the ``Suzuran'' she submitted to the editorial department of ``Shoujo Gaho'' was accepted, and she began serializing ``Hana Monogatari'' for 10 years and became a popular author who received overwhelming support from female students. Masu. She moved to the boarding house of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Kanda, and while she was expanding her network of Tsuda Juku and Joshi Art students, her father passed away. Nobuko wrote her The Two Virgins in the Attic while mourning her father, and reveals her own homosexual experiences in the book, which is based on her homosexual experiences at the YMCA.

"New Women's World"
In order to enter the Osaka Asahi Shimbun prize for a novel, Nobuko stayed at the home of her older brother Tadaaki, who works in Hokkaido, for three months and wrote ``To the Ends of the Earth'', making her literary debut at the age of 24. She falls in love with Chiyo Monma, a talented woman who graduated from Ochanomizu University's Department of Mathematics, whom she hires as a secretary. They build a new house in Shimoai, where writers gather, and they begin living together. When she was 29 years old, she published her personal magazine ``Black Rose'', in which she discussed female homosexuality head on. Nobuko and Chiyo used a large amount of royalties to travel from the port of Kobe to Manchuria, the Soviet Union, and Germany, staying in Paris, France for nearly a year, and then returning to Japan via the United States. At the age of 40, she created a huge sensation with her novel ``The Chastity of a Good Man'', which was about male chastity and gender, and caused a boom in movies and theater as well. During the war, she published military reportage from China as a correspondent for ``Shufu no Tomo,'' and from Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand as a female officer of ``Pen Unit.'' At the same time, she wrote a novel, ``Women's Classroom,'' which was serialized in Tokyo Nichiichi Shimbun and Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, in which she tells the story of overcoming the old world of men and realizing a new world of women through war. I'll draw. After the war, she built a new house in Kamakura, which is rich in nature, and lived with Chiyo Monno in her later years, writing long historical novels about women's history such as ``The Tokugawa Wives'' and ``Onna Heike.'' . She died at the age of 77.

-吉屋信子記念館　Nobuko Yoshiya memorial Museum

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