Who is Lafcadio Hearn?
Lafcadio Hearn, an author writing around the turn of the 20th century, is best known for his books on Japan, especially his collections of the country’s folklore. Though he was born in Greece and raised in Ireland, Lafcadio Hearn spent the majority of his life in the United States and became a Japanese citizen in his later years. Hearn fell in love with local culture during his first visit to Japan and spent the remainder of his life there, building a family with a Japanese woman and taking the name Koizumi Yakumo. Hearn was born Patrick Lafcadio Hearn on the Greek island of Lefkada on 27 June 1850, the son of an Irish Surgeon Major father stationed on the island and a Greek mother. Hearn moved to Dublin, Ireland in 1856 after his parents’ divorce and spent his childhood there with a great-aunt. He briefly attended Ushaw Roman Catholic College in Durham. During his teenage years, Hearn sustained an injury on the playground that cost him the function of his left eye. At the age of 19, H
