Hanako Muraoka

Muraoka was born on June 21, 1893, in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture. Her birth name was Hana Annaka (安中 はな, Annaka Hana).[1] Her parents were Methodists, and she was raised a devout Christian. She studied at the Tokyo Eiwa Jogakuin and began writing children's stories when she was encouraged by translator Hiroko Katayama.[2] She graduated from school in 1913.

After graduation, Muraoka returned to Yamanashi and taught at a branch of the Tokyo Eiwa Jogakuin there. In 1917 she published her first book, Rohen (炉辺, "Fireside").[3]

She married Keizo Muraoka in 1919. They had a son in 1920. In 1926, after Keizo's printing company went bankrupt after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, they restarted the company in their home. Soon after that, their son died, leaving Muraoka depressed.[3] Katayama encouraged her to translate Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, and this helped her resume her normal routine.

In 1932, Muraoka started a radio show in which she would read the news to children. The show became very popular, and children all over Japan called her Rajio no Obasan (ラジオのおばさん, "Aunty Radio"). The show ended in the early 1940s as World War II began. Muraoka did not want to read news that referred to Canadians as the enemy because many of her friends were Canadian.[3]

In 1939 Muraoka was given a copy of Anne of Green Gables by her friend Loretta Leonard Shaw, a Canadian missionary. Muraoka translated it during the war, bringing the draft with her during air raids. The book was published in 1952 and became a bestseller.[4] It was even added to the Japanese school curriculum in the 1970s.[5] Some translators later criticized Muraoka's translation because she had omitted some parts.[6]

Muraoka planned her first trip to Prince Edward Island in 1968. She was never able to visit before she died of a stroke on October 25, 1968.[7]

A television drama about Muraoka's life, Hanako to Anne, was broadcast on the NHK in 2014. It was based on her biography An no Yurikago: Muraoka Hanako no Shōgai (アンのゆりかご―村岡花子の生涯―, "Anne's Cradle: The Life of Hanako Muraoka"), which was written by her granddaughter, Eri Muraoka.[7]

• Muraoka, Eri (2021). Anne's Cradle: The Life and Works of Hanako Muraoka, Japanese Translator of Anne of Green Gables. Translated by Hirano, Cathy. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing. ISBN 1771089245.