author
Yoné Noguchi
1875–1947
A pioneering Japanese poet and critic who wrote in both English and Japanese, he helped introduce Japanese literary ideas to Western readers while also bringing international currents into modern Japanese literature. His life moved between Japan and the United States, giving his work an unusual cross-cultural energy.
2 Audiobooks
The Spirit of Japanese Art
by Yoné Noguchi
The American Diary of a Japanese Girl
by Yoné Noguchi
About the author
Born Yonejirō Noguchi in Tsushima, Japan, in 1875, he became one of the first Japanese-born writers to publish poetry in English. After studying at Keio in Tokyo, he traveled to the United States in the 1890s, where he began writing and publishing in English and built connections with literary circles in California.
Noguchi wrote poetry, essays, fiction, and criticism across two languages, and his career was shaped by that rare ability to speak to readers in both Japan and the English-speaking world. He is especially remembered for helping introduce Japanese poetry and aesthetics abroad, while also engaging Japanese readers with ideas and movements from overseas.
Later in life he was active as a teacher and public literary figure in Japan. He died in 1947, and he is also widely noted as the father of the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.