Photo/Illutration Jakucho Setouchi in 2019 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Reading a novel brings the pleasure of meeting someone who lived in the past "reborn" into a living and feeling person.

In "Bi wa Rancho ni Ari" (Beauty in Disarray), author Jakucho Setouchi portrayed anarchist and social critic Noe Ito (1895-1923) as a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve.

Ito believed that her bond of love with her husband, a young literary enthusiast, was so tight that "not even a drop of water" could come between them.

And yet, she became attracted to another young man--anarchist Sakae Osugi (1885-1923). Even though she was raising a young child, she wrote him letters where her romantic feelings were jumbled up with her passion for social justice.

Setouchi probably identified with Ito.

She herself left her husband and daughter shortly after World War II for a young lover.

"I didn't really know whether I was in love with him or fell in love with the sheer energy of postwar literature," Setouchi later recalled in her essay.

She was already a big-name author when she entered a Buddhist nunnery at age 51.

She noted in one of her writings that after years of focusing intensely on testing her talent, she began to feel inexplicable emptiness.

Setouchi, who continued to write novels and essays from her modest nunnery, died on Nov. 9. She was 99.

I cannot forget what she said on an NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.) program last year: "There is no post-retirement life if you are an author. You feel the blueness of the sky only because you keep writing."

Laying down the pen shuts down the heart's ability to feel deeply. This is the fate of authors, and it is a blessing for readers.  

In her serial column in The Asahi Shimbun, which continued until last month, she wrote: "When people ask me if there is an afterlife, I cannot answer. However, I've finally begun to feel recently that 'death' does not result in 'nothingness.' Rather, to die may be more like transitioning into 'another world.'"

I truly hope she will hold onto her pen in that world.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 12

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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