Yoko Ota

(1903-1963) born in Hiroshima, daughter of a troubled marriage that would end in divorce seven years later. It is during this turbulent time of her childhood that Ota comes into contact with national and foreign literature. Later, in high school, she begins to write and even manages to publish her first works in the Chugoku Shinbun newspaper. Since 1929, she participates in the influential feminist literary magazine Nyonin Geijutsu (Art and Women), where she debuts as an author with Seibo no iru tasogare (Twilight with a Holy Mother), the short novel that would take her to Tokyo in 1930. In the capital, she befriends the great writers of her generation and manages to dedicate herself fully to writing. However, the event that would most deeply mark her career was World War II and, specifically, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In the following years, the need to narrate the trauma crystallizes in numerous works, among which Ciudad de cadáveres (City of Corpses) stands out, incomprehensibly unpublished in Spain until now.

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