Sawako Ariyoshi (1931–1984) was a Japanese writer best known for The Doctor's Wife and The River Ki, and her novels included The Twilight Years. Several of her books examined the bond between mothers and daughters, and she wrote often about the elderly in Japanese society and about environmental damage. Her interest in traditional arts such as kabuki and bunraku ran through her work, and she also wrote about the depopulation of remote Japanese islands during the 1970s economic boom. Her years at Sarah Lawrence gave her firsthand experience of racial discrimination in the United States, which she later described in her writing.
