Based on the life and career of novelist Fumiko Hayashi, she bitterly struggles for literary recognition in the first half of the 20th-century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.

Hideko Takamine
as Fumiko Hayashi

Akira Takarada
as Fukuya

Daisuke Katō
as Nobuo Sadaoka

Keiju Kobayashi
as Fujiyama

Kinuyo Tanaka
as Kishi, Fumiko's Mother

Mitsuko Kusabue
as Kyôko Hinatsu

Noboru Nakaya
as Haruhiko Itatsu

Yūnosuke Itō
as Gorô Shirasaka

Jun Tatara
as Tamura

Masao Oda
as Fumiko's Father