Yei Theodora Ozaki

was a Japanese translator of Japanese short stories and fairy tales. Her translations were fairly liberal but have been popular, and were reprinted several times after her death. Biography Ozaki was born in London 1871 to Baron Saburō Ozaki, one of the first Japanese men to study in the West, and an English woman, Bathia Catherine Morrison (1843-1936), daughter of William Mason Morrison (1819-1885) and Mary Anne Morrison. Bathia was one of Ozaki's tutors in London, and they married in 1869. According to Mary Fraser, in the extract "A Biographical Sketch", from Warriors of old Japan, and other stories, Bathia lived separately from Ozaki. Bathia gave birth to two further daughters, Masako Maude Mary Harriett Ozaki (b. Jan. 1872) and Kimie Bathia Alexandra Ozaki (1873-1964). Baron Ozaki returned to Japan in 1873 to fulfill an arranged marriage to a Japanese noblewoman, Toda Yae, to continue the upper-class family name of Toda. He eventually moved to a post in Saint Petersburg in an attempt to reconcile with Bathia, who was entered into his family registry (koseki) in 1880, until further issues arose and Bathia returned from Russia in December 1880. They eventually divorced in London, perhaps as Ozaki had fathered multiple children, one with Toda Yae and seven (later totalling 14) with his Japanese mistress Fujiki Michi, creating such a situation as which "her English friends could hardly advise her [to] go." After the divorce of their parents in 1881, on the suggestion of a friend of Baron Ozaki, all three daughters grew up with Bathia and their English grandparents in St Alban's Cottage, Fulham, London. Yei's grandfather, William, is said to have encouraged her to write in English, which became a mother tongue alongside Japanese. After a spate of missed alimony payments, Yei and Kimie travelled to Tokyo to live with their father in May 1887, with the consent of their mother. Masako stayed in England and married an Englishman in 1906, whilst Kimie later settled in Norway. Fraser notes that Yei enjoyed the period when she was sent to live with her father in Japan, where she received an education. However, her father expected her to conform to Japanese societal values, and expected also to decide her husband accordingly. However, Yei refused an arranged marriage, left her father's house, and became an English tutor and secretary to earn money.