Born in 1850 on the Greek island of Lefkada to an Irish father and a Greek mother. His birth name was Patrick Lafcadio Hearn. His parents divorced during his childhood, and he was raised by a great-aunt through difficult early years. He lost the sight in his left eye at age 16. In 1869 he emigrated to America, working as a journalist in Cincinnati and New Orleans, where his fascination with Creole culture cultivated his talent for cross-cultural writing. In 1890, he came to Japan as a magazine correspondent and took a position as an English teacher at a middle school in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. In Matsue he met and married Koizumi Setsu, living in a samurai residence while becoming deeply captivated by Japanese customs, beliefs, and ghost stories. He later taught at Kumamoto's Fifth Higher School, worked for a Kobe English newspaper, and in 1896 became a lecturer in English literature at Tokyo Imperial University. That same year he took Japanese citizenship and adopted the name Koizumi Yakumo. His masterwork "Kwaidan" (1904) retold Japanese supernatural tales — including "Hoichi the Earless," "Yuki-Onna," and "Mujina" — in English, and had a defining influence on Western understanding of Japanese culture. "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan" (1894) poetically described Japanese spiritual life through his Matsue experiences. During 14 years in Japan he produced more than twelve books on Japanese subjects, shaping the Western perception of Japan more than any other writer. He died of angina pectoris in Tokyo in 1904, aged 54.