When Jakucho Setouchi strolls through the streets of the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto, her shaved head and flowing robes marking her out as a Buddhist nun, high school girls cheerfully call her "Jakky" and fans trail in her wake.
Thousands attend her sermons, and some people become so emotional that, putting aside traditional Japanese reserve, they publicly sob.
At 84, Setouchi is one of Japan's best-known religious leaders yet some of her life's most defining experiences have been love affairs.
A novelist who did not take her vows until she was in her fifties, Setouchi has also had a dazzling literary career, and was recently awarded the prestigious Order of Culture by Emperor Akihito.
"I thought they could have given it to me a bit earlier, to be honest," she said with a chuckle during an interview at her Kyoto temple.
Becoming serious once more, she says: "I never expected I would receive the award. Most of my works' themes are against the establishment, including the imperial system."
The Order of Culture recognized not only her novels but also her broad cultural contributions such as translating into modern Japanese the 11th century love story, The Tale of Genji, Japan's, and some say the world's, first novel.
But Setouchi was once an outcast from literary circles and endured being labelled a pornographer.
As Harumi Setouchi -- decades before becoming a nun and taking the Buddhist name Jakucho -- she described sex from the perspective and with the voice of a woman.
Her freewheeling private life, about which she has written in some of her books, involved affairs with a young lover and a years-long relationship with a married man, which also brought her scorn.
Nevertheless, her prodigious output eventually forced the public to embrace her as the country's top-ranking novelist.
"Times have changed," she said of the emperor's award. "The authorities can no longer ignore diversity in ideas and thought. I accepted the award for women who will follow the same path in life as me."
Setouchi, who lost her mother and grandfather in US bombings near the end of World War II, often urges her fellow Japanese to exercise their imagination when looking at where their nation is heading.
She said she felt fear after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe created a full-fledged defense ministry in January. The conservative premier has also pledged to rewrite the pacifist constitution, which was imposed by the US after Japan's World War II surrender.
"That could open a path for Japan to go into a war eventually and resume military drafting," she said. "I don't want to see that happen again, at least while I'm still alive."
Setouchi is now working on a new novel, in which she tries to get into the inner struggle of Zeami, an actor, playwright and critic of the 14th and 15th centuries who established the "Noh" classical theatrical art.
She said she was impressed by a remark made by Zeami: People die but art lives forever.
Despite his own miserable circumstances -- Zeami was banished to a remote island when his patron was replaced by a new shogun -- the medieval dramatist believed art was an eternal vehicle for conveying human compassion.
"We human beings are so foolish and insensitive that we cannot feel anything until we experience it," Setouchi said.
"Unless you go through real heartbreak, you cannot understand the agony that drives you crazy. That is why we have art," she said. "You have to read and train your imagination, and learn to feel compassion for other people."
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