Kamo no Chōmei

✶January 1, 1155

†January 1, 1216

1 candle burning, 6 lit in all

About their life

Kamo no Chōmei was a Japanese author, poet, and essayist. He witnessed a series of natural and social disasters, and, having lost his political backing, was passed over for promotion within the Shinto shrine associated with his family. He decided to turn his back on society, took Buddhist vows, and became a hermit, living outside the capital. This was somewhat unusual for the time, when those who turned their backs on the world usually joined monasteries. Along with the poet-priest Saigyō he is representative of the literary recluses of his time, and his celebrated essay Hōjōki is representative of the genre known as "recluse literature".

Japanese poet

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Biography from the article Kamo no Chōmei on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.