Literary Diplomacy: Yei Theodora Ozaki, Early Anglo-Japanese Writing, and Transnational Female Networks

This chapter explores Yei Theodora Ozaki (1870–1932), an Anglo-Japanese writer who published books and articles about Japanese literature and culture in Britain and America in the early twentieth century. It focuses on the construction of her authorial identity as a biethnic subject in the highly homogeneous Meiji Japanese society and the paradiplomatic role she played through literature when the Pacific became the stage of imperial competition. Examining her published works alongside unpublished correspondence, Kumojima discusses the struggles and assets Ozaki’s peculiar heritage afforded her while establishing her as an authoritative native informant and a skilled cultural interpreter of Japan to the West. Kumojima also uncovers the forgotten transnational literary networks of women and their collective efforts for professional recognition in then-rising metropolitan Tokyo.