Issa Kobayashi (1763~1827)

Issa was born and registered as Kobayashi Nobuyuki, with a childhood name of Kobayashi Yatarô, the first son of a farmer family of Kashiwabara, now part of Shinano-machi, Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture).

Issa endured the loss of his mother, who died when he was three. Her passing was the first of numerous difficulties young Issa suffered. He was cared for by his grandmother, who doted on him, but his life changed again when his father remarried five years later. Issa's half-brother was born two years later, and when his grandmother died when he was 14, Issa felt estranged in his own house.

Issa was a lonely, moody child who preferred to wander the fields. This attitude did not please his stepmother, a "tough 'managing' woman of hard-working peasant stock." Issa’s difficult relationship with his stepmother would continue until his latter years.

In 1777, Issa was sent by his father to Edo (present-day Tokyo) to eke out a living. Nothing of the next ten years of his life is known for certain. His name was associated with Kobayashi Chikua of the Nirokuan haiku school, but their relationship is not clear.

In the following years, Issa wandered throughout Japan while fighting over his inheritance with his stepmother (his father died in 1801). After years of legal wrangling, Issa managed to secure rights to half of the property his father left. He returned to his native village at the age of 49 and soon took a wife, Kiku. After a brief period of bliss, tragedy returned. The couple's first-born child died shortly after his birth. A daughter died less than two-and-a-half years later, inspiring Issa to write this haiku (translated by Lewis Mackenzie):