Yoshikawa Eiji Memorial Museum
Yoshikawa Eiji (1892–1962) is considered one of Japan’s greatest historical novelists. He wrote more than 100 books during his prolific career, starting as a newspaper journalist before moving into historical fiction. He is credited with making Japanese history accessible to a wide audience, and a number of his novels such as Musashi have been translated into several languages and made into popular films.
Yoshikawa’s home has been preserved as a museum. He purchased the property in 1944 from a wealthy silk producer. He wrote several novels there, including The Heike Story. The house is spacious, with sliding doors that allow the rooms to be opened up onto the gardens. A room immediately inside the entrance to the house was used as a study.
Yoshikawa’s main study is a semi-detached Western-style room laid out just as he used it, with a low table and chair, his papers, and writing implements. A tray holding his cigarettes and an ashtray—which still contains the ash of one of his last cigarettes—are beside the chair.
The museum has a complete collection of Yoshikawa’s more than 100 books, as well as film posters, illustrations, and photographs of Yoshikawa and his friends. Yoshikawa was awarded the Cultural Order of Merit in 1960 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1962 for his contributions to Japanese literature.