Girl in a Box
A Novel
Coming in Spring 2026 with Sibylline Press
Akiko circa 1912
In early twentieth century Japan, women have few rights. Yet one precocious poet—a brooding daughter, locked in her room at night by protective parents—runs away from home to live a life of her choosing.
She falls in love with a fellow poet and follows him across Siberia to Paris, where they witness the last days of the Belle Époque. She perseveres through poverty, back-to-back pregnancies, infidelity, earthquake, and fire, to become a name every Japanese schoolchild knows today as a pioneering feminist poet and the first person to translate the classical Tale of Genji into modern Japanese.
In her single-minded dedication to her art, she inflicts wounds on a daughter that echo from her own childhood. She sets out to make amends, knowing it may be too late. Based on the life of poet Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) and filled with original translations of her poetry, Girl in a Box will feel familiar to anyone who has juggled family, career, and personal freedom.
About the Project
I have been thinking about writing this biographical novel for thirty years.
Akiko’s love poems first took my breath away in the 1980s when I was studying Japanese in college. As I got older, her writing about marriage, childbirth, and women’s rights began to speak to me as well.
I have translated scores of Akiko’s poems; most of which have never been translated into English before.
Her poetry is filled with classical references, making this work challenging. I would have no hope without the help of friends and supporters, including Yoko Kato, Masayo Baillet, Kate Mashiko, Chizuru Shimizu, Noriyo Tokuchi, and the Yosano Akiko Club of Sakai, Japan (particularly the Club Chairman, Emeritus Prof. Noboru Ota and Administrator Yukihiko Kotani), and the blog MerryDiary.
日本語ででも、お気軽にご連絡ください。
Jean Gordon Kocienda
