Wenceslau de Moraes | |
|---|---|
 Moraes inKobe, 1897 | |
| Born | Wenceslau José de Sousa de Moraes 30 May 1854 |
| Died | 1 July 1929(1929-07-01) (aged 75) Tokushima, Japan |
| Occupations | Writer, naval officer, diplomat |
| Known for | explaining Japan inPortuguese |
Wenceslau José de Souza de Moraes (30 May 1854 – 1 July 1929), in modern orthographyVenceslau José de Sousa de Morais, was aPortuguese writer whose works were steeped inorientalism andexoticism, particularly the culture ofJapan. He has been compared toLafcadio Hearn, a contemporary who settled in Japan but wrote in English.[1] A translator ofHaiku, his verse was also influenced bySymbolism.
Born into a bourgeois family of modest wealth in Lisbon, Moraes wrote his first poems in 1872 at the age of 18. After studying at the Naval College, he was commissioned alieutenant in 1875 and served aboardwarships based inPortuguese Mozambique. In 1889, he was promoted tocommander and assigned to assist theCaptain of the Port ofPortuguese Macau. While there he first began writing hisTraços do Extremo Oriente, married an Anglo-Chinese woman named Atchan (from whom he separated in 1893), and visitedSiam,Portuguese Timor, and Japan (the last nearly every year).[2]
In 1899, he abandoned his naval career and became consul of Portugal's first consulate forKobe andOsaka, Japan. Increasingly fascinated by Japan, he converted toBuddhism and married a formergeisha named Fukumoto Yone in aShinto ceremony. Grief-stricken after her death in 1912, he resigned his position as consul, severed all relations with thePortuguese Navy and foreign ministry, and moved to Yone's home city of Tokushima, where he lived with her niece Koharu and visited her grave every day.[2] In chapter 41 of his bookO "Bon-Odori" em Tokushima (1916) he explains why he chose to live the remainder of his life not among the living, but among memories of the deceased.[3] After Koharu died in 1916, he made daily visits to the graves of both women, whom he memorialized in 1923, by which time he had become a hermit, increasingly Japanese in lifestyle, but increasingly resented by his Japanese neighbors.[1] He died alone in 1929, at the age of 75.[2]
Moraes and his works remained largely unknown in Japan until the seventh-year Buddhist memorial service for him on 1 July 1935, when Jiroh Yumoto, the local superintendent of schools (from Nagano Prefecture), encouraged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education to publicize his work. He is now remembered in a small museum atopMount Bizan in Tokushima City.[3]
Paulo Rocha's filmA Ilha dos Amores (1982) is about the life and loves of Moraes in Macau and Japan.
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