A Daughter of the Samurai

‘A Daughter of the Samurai’ (1925) is an autobiography by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto. Born in Japan into a high-ranking samurai family at the onset of the Meiji period, Etsu Sugimoto’s own life mirrored the radical shifts her country faced. Sugimoto gained a unique perspective on Japanese life that would shape her literary career and outlook as a professor at New York’s Columbia University.
Originally prepared to live as a priestess, Etsu became the centre of her father’s attention when her brother eloped and left for America. No longer financially stable, Sugimoto’s father depended on his children to secure their family’s future. Soon, he arranged for his daughter to marry a successful merchant living in Ohio, sending her to Tokyo to study at a Methodist school. Then, she made the journey across the ocean to start a new life in America.
Etsu arrives in Cincinnati, puzzled by the differences between the two cultures and alive to the contradictions, ironies, and beauties of both. Her memoir is an unforgettable story of a strong and determined woman.