A special exhibition commemorating the 170th anniversary of the birth of Lafcadio Hearn, also known as Yakumo Koizumi, is being held at a Tokyo museum.
Titled "Koizumi Yakumo Wandering Ghost," the exhibition will run through Dec. 6 at the Shinjuku Historical Museum in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, an area that has a strong connection with the Greece-born writer.
After living in many countries, Hearn became fascinated with the yokai supernatural beings in Japanese folklore. Likening his life to a ghost, the exhibition presents 160 items related to Hearn, including personal belongings and drafts of his work to examine the creative process of his writing.
Born in Greece in 1850, Hearn spent his childhood in Ireland and became a newspaper reporter in the United States in his 20s. After coming to Japan in 1890, he lived in Matsue, Kumamoto and Kobe before moving to Tokyo. He married a Japanese woman in 1896 and changed his name to Yakumo Koizumi after obtaining Japanese citizenship.
He then lived in what is now Shinjuku Ward until his death in 1904, leaving behind him literary works including "Kwaidan," his own accounts of Japanese ghost stories.
Recent visitors looked over the items on exhibit with great interest, including Hearn's letters to a friend in the United States, a draft of the short novel "Miminashi Hoichi" (Hoichi the earless), which is included in "Kwaidan." Also on display was the pen he used to write after coming to Japan.
"Yakumo led a hard life. He lost the sight in his left eye when he was young. I hope visitors will learn about life through the life of a man who loved Japan under such circumstances and left many literary works behind him," said curator Tomomi Fujimoto.
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