Japanese · 1734–1809
Ueda Akinari (1734-1809) was a Japanese writer, scholar and poet of the Edo period. Born in Osaka, he was abandoned as a child and adopted by a paper and oil merchant. He grew up in the merchant world, wrote haikai poetry, and later studied medicine and practiced as a doctor after a fire destroyed the family business. He also studied the classics of National Learning and argued with the scholar Motoori Norinaga over the ancient language. His best-known book is Tales of Moonlight and Rain (Ugetsu monogatari, 1776), nine supernatural stories drawn from Chinese and Japanese sources. In 1808 he published Tales of the Spring Rain (Harusame monogatari). His ghost stories shaped later Japanese fiction, and Kenji Mizoguchi's 1953 film Ugetsu adapted several of them. He spent his later years in Kyoto and went blind near the end of his life.