Early life and career Born in
Nagasaki to young, unmarried parents (her father was 18, her mother 15), the family moved to Tokyo while she was still a child. Her first job was in a caramel factory, but she later went on to work in restaurants where she befriended several writers, including
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. In 1922, her poems were published for the first time in the magazine
Shi to jinsei ("Poetry and life"). Taking her second husband Tsurujirō Kubokawa's family name and slightly modifying her first name, she published her work as Ineko Kubokawa until around 1940. While praised by writers like
Yasunari Kawabata for drawing on modernist literary techniques, Sata became increasing involved in issues related to workers and the labor movement. In 1929, she spoke out against the treatment of women workers in cigarette factories. In 1931, she defended the striking workers of the Tokyo Muslin Factory. As a member of the Proletarian Literature Movement, she wrote a series of stories about the lives of ordinary working men and women. These included
Kyosei kikoku ("Compulsory Extradition"), about the rights of migrant Korean workers, and
Tears of a Factory Girl in the Union Leadership (
Kanbu joko no namida), In 1932, she joined the outlawed
Japan Communist Party (JCP). the latter tortured to death by police in 1933. Sata's strong opinions were also often at odds with the official Communist Party platform. Her wartime experiences were the subject of
Watashi no Tōkyō chizu ("My Tokyo Map"), which was written between 1946 and 1948. 1953 saw the first post-war reprint of
Crimson, which was received favourably by critics. again led to her expulsion from the JCP. Sata was awarded the
Noma Literary Prize in 1972 for her book
Juei ("The Shade of Trees"), which deals with the relationships between Chinese and Japanese people in Nagasaki after the dropping of the atomic bomb, and the (fictionalised) biography of painter Kiyoshi Ikeno (1930–1960), which had already served as basis for her 1961 short story
The Colorless Paintings. In 1973, she was offered the Geijutsuin Onshi-shō (Imperial Art Academy Prize) for her life's work, but she refused the award as she regarded it as a nationalist congratulation prize. She accepted the 1976 Kawabata Yasunari Literature Award for one of the stories in her short story collection
Toki ni tatsu. In 1983, Sata received the
Asahi Prize for the entire body of her work. She gave an acceptance speech which expressed regret for her contributions to the war effort. Her book about Nakano (who had died in 1979),
Natsu no Shiori – Nakano Shigeharu o okuru ("Memories of Summer – a Farewell to Shigeharu Nakano"), was awarded the Mainichi Art Award in 1983. Ineko Sata died in Tokyo in 1998. ==Selected works==