Uno Tiyo was born in Iwakuni-city, Yamaguti prefecture in 1897. When she was 17 years old, she became an assistant teacher of elementaly school, but she was obliged to retreat because of love affair. Wandering from place to place, she made her debut with Shifun no Kao (A powdered Face) in 1921. She went to Tokyo to fall in love with many great writers and artists, including the novelist Ozaki Koyo, the painter Togo Seji, the novelist Kitahara Takeo. She was regarded as George Sand in Japan.
Ohan (1957) is her most important work, in which she describes a love affair of a coward man in Joruri-like classic style. Irozange (A Confessions of Love) is also her masterpiece. Ikiteiku Watashi (I will go on living) is an auto-biographical essay, best-selling in 1983, when she was 85 years old.
Her life was so showy that critics did not read seriously her writing. Maurya Saiichi, however, highly esteems Ohan, in which she adapted streams of conscious to Japanese classic style. Her works will be revaluated as refined modernism literature.
She died on June 10 1997 at age of 98. The city office of Iwakuni, her hometown, announced to build Uno Tiyo Museum.