Eiji Yoshikawa (1892 1962) was born in Kanagawa. Although he received little more than a primary education, in his lifetime, he authored some 80 novels and over 180 short stories. Among his best-selling novels are
Mushashi, Way of the Samurai, and
The Heike Story. Credited with greatly elevating popular fiction, Yoshikawa was the first writer of such work to be awarded the Order of Culture.
Davinder Bhowmik is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington, specializing in modern Japanese literature, Okinawan fiction, and the Japanese language. She is the author of Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance.