Background
Sōma was born as Hoshi Ryō (星良), and was the samurai in the sercive of Sendai domain, and her mother was a scholar of Chinese classical literature.
相馬黒光
Sōma was born as Hoshi Ryō (星良), and was the samurai in the sercive of Sendai domain, and her mother was a scholar of Chinese classical literature.
She was given the pen name of Kokko by one of her teachers, with the cautionary note that for women authors, only a moderately shining light would be considered acceptable by society. In Tokyo, Sōma purchased the Nakamura-ya bakery near the main gate to Tokyo Imperial University. In 1909, the shop relocated to Shinjuku.
The bakery often hired foreigners or consulted with foreign residents in Japan for ideas on new products or new condiments to use, and the shop flourished, later added a café and restaurant.
This was the start of the Sōmas patronage of the arts and literature. In addition to providing financial support to struggling artists and writers, the Somas also provided support to the pan-Asian movement, and the salon provided a convenient and confidential meeting place for politicians, including Toyama Mitsuru, Inukai Tsuyoshi and others
The Sōmas provided shelter for Rash Behari Bose, the fugitive head of the Indian independence movement. Bose was the mastermind behind a number of bomb plots against the Viceroy of India and attempts to organize an uprising against the British Raj.
Bose married Sōma’s daughter Toshiko in 1918.
Sōma died in 1955. In the television movie, Rokuzan no ai ("Rokuzan’s Love") aired by Tokyo Broadcasting System (Turner Broadcasting System) in February 2007. Kokkō Sōma is played by Miki Mizuno, with the story line depicting a forbidden romance between Rokuzan Ogiwara (played by Hiroyuki Hirayama), with Kokkō becoming the model for Ogiwara’s famous sculpture, Woman.
The atelier grew to beome a literary salon, whose members included Naoe Kinoshita, a socialist activist from Sōma’s home town, Vasili Eroshenko, a blind Russian poet, as well as actress Sumako Matsui, painter Tsune Nakamura, poet and sculptor Kōtarō Takamura.
