LAUSR

ABSTRACT Kusumoto Ine was one of the first women in Japan to practice Western medicine. As the daughter of Philipp Franz von Siebold, a naturalised Dutch physician who visited Japan in the early nineteenth century, and Kusumoto Taki, his Japanese concubine, Ine’s extraordinary life has captured the imaginations of novelists, dramatists and historians alike. For a long time, readers have turned to Yoshimura Akira’s 1978 novel Fuon Shiiboruto no Musume [Von Siebold’s daughter] as the most accessible and comprehensive rendition of her biography, with much of its historical detail accepted as fact, rather than fiction. In this article, I argue that despite the popularity of Yoshimura’s biographical novel, it is still possible and desirable to create alternative narratives of Ine’s life. In order to present a feminist narrative of Ine’s past, I propose to examine her as a filial daughter who – like many other Japanese women of her time – took action to empower herself as an individual, as well as to protect and ensure the survival of her family.