Ichiyo Higuchi (1872~1896) was born in Tokyo. She became a disciple of a female poet Utako Nakajima to study poetry and classical Japanese literature. After her father's death in 1989, she became the breadwinner of the family. When she was told that her fellow disciple Kaho Tanabe received an expensive fee for novel writing, she decided to earn a living by novel writing, and started studying under a newspaper journalist Tosui Nakarai. In 1982, she published her first novel Yamizakura (Flowers at Dusk) on a literary magazine Musashino. She and Tosui broke up when a rumor about their relationship went around. Then she published novels, including Otsugomori (On the Last Day of the Year), Takekurabe (Growing Up),Nigorie (Troubled Waters), and Jusanya (Thirteenth Night), which she won high praise. She died of lung tuberculosis in 1896, at the age of 25.