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Japan

Author · Japan

Ihara Saikaku

Died in 1693

Ihara Saikaku, perhaps born Hirayama Tōgo, was born in 1642 in Ōsaka into a well-off merchant family. A master of comic linked verse, he was known for his speed contests and is said to have composed more than twenty thousand verses in a single day. Widowed in 1675, the father of three children, including a blind daughter, he then devoted himself to travel and writing. From 1682 he published prose narratives about money, debts and the loves of merchants, and about the pleasure quarters. He died in Ōsaka in 1693.

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