Lafcadio Hearn

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (June 27, 1850 - September 26, 1904), also known as Koizumi Yakumo (????) after gaining Japanese citizenship, was an author, best known for his books about Japan. He is especially well-known to the Japanese for his collections of Japanese legends, one of which was made into a film by Masaki Kobayashi (Kwaidan (1965)).

Emigration

The religious faith in which he was brought up was, however, soon lost and, at 19, he was sent to live in the United States of America where he settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. For a time, he lived in utter poverty, which may have contributed to his later paranoia and distrust of those around him. He eventually found a friend in the English printer, and communalist, Henry Watkin. With Watkin's help, Hearn picked up a living in the lower grades of newspaper work.

Related Topics:
United States of America - Cincinnati, Ohio - Paranoia - Henry Watkin

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Through the strength of his talent as a writer, Hearn quickly advanced through the newspaper ranks and became a reporter for the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, working for the paper from 1872 to 1875. With creative freedom in one of Cincinnati's largest circulating newspapers he developed a reputation for sensitive, dark, and fascinating accounts of Cincinnati's disadvantaged. He continued to occupy himself with journalism and with out-of-the-way observation and reading, and meanwhile his erratic, romantic and rather morbid idiosyncrasies developed.

Related Topics:
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer - 1872 - 1875

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

While in Cincinnati, he married Alethea ("Mattie") Foley, an black woman, an illegal practice at the time. When the scandal was discovered and publicized, he was fired from the Enquirer and went to work for the rival Cincinnati Commercial. But the smoke and pollution in Cincinnati bothered his sensitive eyes, so he left the city in 1877 for New Orleans, Louisiana.

Related Topics:
Black - New Orleans, Louisiana

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He lived there between 1877 and 1888, writing for the Times Democrat newspaper. His writings about New Orleans focused on the city's Creole history, distinctive cuisine, underworld, and Voodoo. His writings for national publications like Harper's Weekly and Scribner's Magazine helped mold the popular image of New Orleans as a colorful place of decadence and hedonism. His best known book on Louisiana is Gombo Zhebes (1885).

Related Topics:
1877 - 1888 - Times Democrat - Creole - Voodoo - Harper's Weekly - Scribner's Magazine - Louisiana - Gombo Zhebes - 1885

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Times Democrat sent Hearn to the West Indies as a correspondent in 1889. He spent two years in the islands and produced Two Years in the French West Indies and Youma, The Story of a West-Indian Slave (both 1890).

Related Topics:
West Indies - 1889 - 1890

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~