Saikaku, Ihara

Saikaku Ihara (1641 - 93), novelist and poet, is credited with founding the genre called ukiyo-zoshi (books of the floating world), a type of popular fiction written between the 1680s and the 1770s. Once downgraded as vulgar, today Saikaku is acclaimed a great realist, largely because of his minute and accurate delineation of characters, customs, and events of his day.