Yōko Ōta

nihongo|Yōko Ōta|大田 洋子|Ōta Yōko|20 February 1903 or 18 November 1906 (Ōta's date of birth is debated.) Richard H. Minear give 1903 as her year of birth, other sources like Kenzaburō Ōe's anthology The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath As a young girl she read Takuboku Ishikawa and Shūsei Tokuda, as well as Goethe, Heine and Tolstoy. After graduating from high school in 1920, she worked briefly as a primary school teacher before taking various jobs as a secretary and typist. She married in 1926, but soon left her husband after being confronted with the fact that he was already married, and had her child adopted. She continued with a series of works in favour of Japan's expansive foreign politics and war efforts, which she later omitted from her curriculum vitae. Stricken with the fear that she would become a victim of radiation sickness, she worked feverishly to complete City of Corpses (Shikabane no machi), an account of her experiences in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. An unedited version was eventually published in 1950. The possibility that she might die from the atomic bomb's aftereffects stayed with her for the rest of her life.

Ōta died of a heart attack in 1963 in Fukushima Prefecture while working on a new novel. The four-volume (though incomplete) and Russian language.

Literary works (selected) 1940: Sakura no kuni 1945: Katei no yō na hikari 1948: City of Corpses (Shikabane no machi) 1951: Ningen ranru 1953: Fireflies (Hotaru) 1954: Han ningen 1954: Residues of Squalor (Zanshū tenten)