Kikou Yamata
Kikou Yamata (March 15th 1897 - March 12th 1975) [[Japanese] キク ・ ヤマタ] is a “woman of letters” French of father Japanese.
Born with Lyon on March 15th, 1897, girl of Yamada Tadazumi, native Japanese diplomat of Nagasaki, consul from Japan in Lyon.
After a childhood passed with Tokyo, it makes, at 26 years, its entry in the Parisian literary living rooms and quickly becomes " la" Japanese woman for the Parisian company of the time, more especially as she speaks perfect French: accustomed living rooms of Mrs. Lucien Muhlfeld or of the duchess of Rochefoucauld impassion himself for the explanations that " Miss Chrysanthème" (=kikou, 菊, in Japanese) gives on Japan, country then especially known in France through the novels of Pierre Loti.
It meets the great figures of the Parisian literary world, André Maurois, Anna de Noailles, Jacques Chardonne, Jean Cocteau, Leon-Paul Fargue and Paul Valéry. Yamata becomes famous with " Masako" , novel published in 1925.
Parallel to its literary career, Kikou Yamata also continues to make known the art of the Japanese bouquet, the Ikebana, of which it was the pionnière in France.
Kikou Yamata leaves Paris for Japan in 1939. After the war, it returns to France, and joins again with the literature. The two works which she writes in 1953, " Three Geishas" and especially " the Lady of Beauté" , unhappy finalist of the Price Femina, are a great success in France.
It is made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1957, and dies in Suisse on March 12th, 1975.
It leaves a work where three topics dominate:
- the description of Japan and its history;
- the Japanese woman, appears powerful, contrary to the Mousmé of Parcelled out, and that Kikou Yamata depicts with the wire of the evolution of Japan of the 20th century;
- duality of its own free-Japanese woman existence, neither completely Western, nor completely Eastern, and yet summoned by the course of its history to assume one or the other of these identities.
Works
- 1918, Ballades and Walks
- 1924, On Japanese Lips
- 1925, Masako
- 1927, Shoji, intimacies and profiles Japanese
- 1928, the Novel of Genji, translation of the novel of Murasaki Shikibu
- 1929, Shizouka, quiet princess
- 1930, Japan Last hour
- 1931, Life of the General Nogi
- 1934, Lives of Geishas
- 1937, Thousand Hearts in China
- 1941, the bronze Christ or the death of a founder of Namban, translation of the novel of Yoshiro Nagayo
- 1942, With the Country of the Queen
- 1950, Writers of Paris
- 1953, the Lady of Beauty
- 1955, Japan of the Japanese women
- 1956, the Month without Gods
- 1957, Rikkas of Japan
- 1958, History of Anières
- 1960, the Art of the Bouquet
- Strange
- 1962, Four News
The bottom of files of Yamata Kikou (personal papers, literary correspondences, works, papers) is preserved at the Public library and Universitaire of Geneva.
Sources
- the Japanese woman, life of Kikou Yamata , by Midori Yajima
- Japolyonnaise , by Monique Penissard
- Japan that I like , film of Yves Mahuzier, and delivers of Yves and Dominique Mahuzier
External bond
- Biography of Kikou Yamata