An Imperial Concubine's Tale: Scandal, Shipwreck, and Salvation in Seventeenth-Century Japan

Japan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking saké and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor’s principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor’s service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula, before being set free in an amnesty. Returning to Kyoto, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun. Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and the war-torn world in which she lived, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents to re-create Nakako’s life from beginning to end. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. As she unravels Nakako’s unusual tale, Rowley also profiles the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine’s Tale tells the true story of a woman’s extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.

About the Author :
G. G. Rowley teaches English and Japanese literature at Waseda University in Tokyo. She has written and/or translated several biographies of Japanese women, including Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji and Masuda Sayo’s Autobiography of a Geisha.

Review :
...A fresh, detailed engagement--simultaneously biographical, historical, and literary--with the lives of a court family that survived a tumultous age of war and exile.--Satoko Shimazaki "Japanese Language and Literature" ...An enjoyable book--John Butler "Asian Review of Books" A lyrical portrayal of a concubine whose life resonates with Japan's cultural heritage as well as its historical background.--Yasuko Sato "Journal of Women's History" Ambitious... As an accessible and pleasurable read, this book is recommended to scholars, across disciplines and periods, grappling with the problem of constructing a narrative out of limited historical sources.--Christina Laffin "Journal of Japanese Studies" An exciting account... does not disappoint... The rich content of this book will appeal to a wide range of readers. This is simply history at its best, rigorously researched and engagingly told.--Sonja Arntzen "Early Modern Women" Even without the advantage of a single word written by the subject herself, Rowley has depicted about as full a portrait as anyone could of this remarkable life. The result is a valuable contribution to the history of women at the turn of the seventeenth century in Japan.--C. Miki Wheeler "Monumenta Nipponica" Impressive and highly readable... Rowley's achievement is to produce a brilliantly realized depiction of the world around Nakako and as such the book should be of interest to anyone interested in the early Tokugawa period, the nature of court culture in Japan or Japanese literary culture.--Adam Clulow "Japanese Studies" Sophisticated yet accessible, the book would be an ideal reading for an undergraduate class.--Laura Nenzi "Sixteenth Century Journal" An Imperial Concubine's Tale is a most welcome contribution to our understanding of the lives of women in early modern Japan.--William Fleming "Japan Forum"