Writers in Kyoto Member Stephen Benfey is a fiction writer, copywriter, and father. He lived in Kyoto during the 1970s, attending college, working for a Japanese gardener, producing videos, and listening to Osaka blues bands. There, he met his future wife and began writing. After raising children in Tokyo, the couple moved to a tiny fishing village on the Boso peninsula. This year, he received honorable mentions from the competition judges for his cleverly conceived piece, “Emperor Uda’s Love of a Cat”.

Stephen writes:
“I’ve taken considerable poetic license in rendering a diary entry written in Chinese by Emperor Uda who reigned 887-897 CE. My rendition suggests that the cat becomes a silent counselor to Uda who was thrust upon the Chrysanthemum Throne at age 20. Though the diary itself has been lost, remnants were compiled in the Edo period. Translations into Japanese and English vary in descriptive details.”

More information on the original diary entry can be found at this link. (Japanese only)

A complete list of results for the Seventh Annual Kyoto Writing Competition can be found here.

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Emperor Uda’s Love of a Cat


“Prince Uda, my cat is now yours,” the Emperor said.
“But father, why?” I asked. “Such a beautiful creature, black as ink!”
“You will know, soon enough,” he said.
I had no desire to rule over anybody. I had trained to be a monk, serene, silent, like a cat.
When I saw my father depart in the Phoenix Carriage, I understood his words, for without my cat I would have come unstuck.
My cat’s eyes are like sparkling needles.
When he crouches he is like a dark jewel. When he curls up he is tiny as an ear of black millet. His ears point sharply to the heavens. His height triples arching like a bow.
In motion he is soundless like a black dragon dancing above the clouds.
He knows yin and yang. By following The Tao he keeps his coat satiny.
That he is black as night is his advantage.
That he is a mouser peerless in Miyako is not surprising.
I give him milk porridge every breakfast like the Buddha ate after fasting.
I ask him questions and he answers honestly, wisely, carefully, silently.
I said to him, “You can see through me. I have no secrets from you. You know me better than I know myself.”
The black cat raised his head from his paws and stared at me, eyes piercing.
Then he sighed as if moved by my confession.
As though words were not enough to express his heart’s emotion.
His reply was more than eloquent.

This, I write in my diary in the first year of Kampyo (889), Heian-kyō.