Banana Yoshimoto

Template:Short description Template:Infobox writer Template:Nihongo is the pen name of Japanese writer Template:Nihongo. From 2002 to 2015, she wrote her name in hiragana (Template:Lang).

Biography

Yoshimoto was born in Tokyo on July 24, 1964, and grew up in a progressive family. Her father was the poet and critic Takaaki Yoshimoto, and her sister, Template:Interlanguage link, is a well-known cartoonist in Japan.

Yoshimoto graduated from Nihon University's College of Art with a major in literature. While there, she adopted the pseudonym "Banana", after her love of banana flowers, a name she recognizes as both "cute" and "purposefully androgynous."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Yoshimoto keeps her personal life guarded and reveals little about her certified rolfing practitioner husband, Hiroyoshi Tahata, or son (born in 2003). Each day she takes half an hour to write at her computer, and she says, "I tend to feel guilty because I write these stories almost for fun."Template:Citation needed Between 2008 and 2010, she maintained an online journal for English-speaking fans.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Writing career

Yoshimoto began her writing career while working as a waitress at a golf club restaurant in 1987.

Her debut work, Kitchen (1988), had over 60 printings in Japan alone. There have been two film adaptations: a Japanese TV movie<ref>Template:Citation</ref> and a more widely released version titled Wo ai chu fang, produced in Hong Kong by Ho Yim in 1997.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In November 1987, Yoshimoto won the 6th Kaien Newcomer Writers Prize for Kitchen; in 1988, the novel was nominated for the Mishima Yukio Prize, and in 1989, it received the 39th Minister of Education's Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1988 (January), she also won the 16th Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature, for the novella Moonlight Shadow, which is included in most editions of Kitchen.

Another one of her novels, Goodbye Tsugumi (1989), received mixed reviews and was made into a 1990 movie directed by Jun Ichikawa.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Publications

Her works include twelve novels and seven collections of essays (including Pineapple Pudding and Song From Banana) which have together sold over six million copies worldwide.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Her themes include love and friendship, the power of home and family, and the effect of loss on the human spirit.

In 1998, she wrote the foreword to the Italian edition of the book Ryuichi Sakamoto. Conversazioni by musicologist Massimo Milano.

In 2013, Yoshimoto wrote the serialized novel, Shall We Love? (僕たち、恋愛しようか?), for the women's magazine Anan, with singer-actor Lee Seung-gi as the central character. The romance novel was the first of her works to feature a Korean singer as the central character.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Writing style

Yoshimoto says that her two main themes are "the exhaustion of young Japanese in contemporary Japan" and "the way in which terrible experiences shape a person's life".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Her works describe the problems faced by youth, urban existentialism, and teenagers trapped between imagination and reality. Her works are targeted not only to the young and rebellious, but also to grown-ups who are still young at heart. Yoshimoto's characters, settings, and titles have a modern and American approach, but the core is Japanese. She addresses readers in a personal and friendly way, with warmth and outright innocence, writing about the simple things such as the squeaking of wooden floors or the pleasant smell of food. Food and dreams are recurring themes in her work which are often associated with memories and emotions. Yoshimoto admits that most of her artistic inspiration derives from her own dreams and that she'd like to always be sleeping and living a life full of dreams.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

She named American author Stephen King as one of her first major influences and drew inspiration from his non-horror stories. As her writing progressed, she was further influenced by Truman Capote and Isaac Bashevis Singer.Template:Citation needed Also manga artist Yumiko Ōshima was an inspiration.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Awards

In 1987, Yoshimoto won the Kaien Newcomer Writers Prize, for Kitchen. In 1988, she was awarded the 16th Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature, for Moonlight Shadow. The following year, she earned two more accolades: the 39th Minister of Education's Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (for the fiscal year of 1988), for Kitchen and Utakata/Sanctuary, and the 2nd Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, for Goodbye Tsugumi. In 1995, she won the 5th Murasaki Shikibu Prize for Amrita, her first full-length novel. And in 2000, she received the 10th Bunkamura Deux Magots Literary Prize, for Furin to Nambei, a collection of stories set in South America.

Outside Japan, she has been awarded prizes in Italy: the Scanno Literary Prize in 1993, the Fendissime Literary Prize in 1996, the Literary Prize Maschera d'Argento in 1999, and the Capri Award in 2011.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Lake was longlisted for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize.

Bibliography

Titles between parentheses are rough translations if the novel has not been translated.

Japanese title	Direct English title translation	Official English title	Japanese publication date	English publication date
Template:Lang		Moonlight Shadow	1986	1993 (included in most editions of Kitchen)
Template:Lang		Kitchen	1988	1993
Template:Lang	Transient/Sanctuary		1988
Template:Lang		The Premonition	1988	2023
Template:Lang		Goodbye Tsugumi	1989	2002
Template:Lang		Asleep	1989	2000
Template:Lang		N.P	1990	1994
Template:Lang		Lizard	1993	1995
Template:Lang		Amrita	1994	1997
Template:Lang	Marika's lengthy night・Dreamlog in Bali		1994
Template:Lang	Hachiko's last lover		1994
Template:Lang		Sly	1996
Template:Lang	Honeymoon		1997
Template:Lang		Hardboiled & Hard Luck	1999	2005
Template:Lang	Occult (Collection of essays selected by the author 1)		2000
Template:Lang	Love (Collection of essays selected by the author 2)		2000
Template:Lang	Death (Collection of essays selected by the author 3)		2001
Template:Lang	Life (Collection of essays selected by the author 4)		2001
Template:Lang	The body knows everything		2000
Template:Lang	Adultery and South America		2000
Template:Lang		Daisy's Life	2000
Template:Lang	Andromeda Heights (Kingdoms, first installment)		2002
Template:Lang	Rainbow		2002
Template:Lang		Argentine Hag (with drawings and pictures by Yoshitomo Nara)	2002	2002 Also published in English by RockinOn
Template:Lang	Cloak of feathers		2003
Template:Lang		Dead-End Memories<ref name="The New York Times 2022 g416">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Asian Review of Books 2022 q600">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Leow 2022 l938">Template:Cite web</ref>	2003	2022
Template:Lang	Don't worry, be happy		2004
Template:Lang	High and dry (first love)		2004
Template:Lang	Lid of the sea		2004
Template:Lang	The shadow of lost things, and ensuing magic (Kingdoms, second installment)		2004
Template:Lang	The secret flower garden (Kingdoms, third installment)		2005
Template:Lang		The Lake	2005	2010
Template:Lang	Dolphin or Are you there?		2006
Template:Lang	Salamander or The small shadow		2006
Template:Lang	Chie and I		2007
Template:Lang	Hawaii dreaming		2007
Template:Lang	South point		2008
Template:Lang	About her or About my girlfriend		2008
Template:Lang		Moshi-Moshi: A Novel	2010	2016
Template:Lang	The acorn sisters		2010
Template:Lang	Another world (Kingdoms, fourth installment)		2010
Template:Lang	Sizzle sizzle		2010
Template:Lang	Sweet hereafter		2011
Template:Lang	A night with Saki and friends		2013
Template:Lang	Hostess bar stumble		2013
Template:Lang	Shall We Love?		2013
Template:Lang	Take an afternoon nap on a bed of flowers		2013
Template:Lang	Birds		2014
Template:Lang	Circus night		2015
Template:Lang	Funafuna Funabashi		2015

External links

• Template:Official website
• Article from Metropolis
• Bananamania
• Romantic Love in the Early Fiction of Banana Yoshimoto Template:Webarchive
• "Banana Yoshimoto's brand-new era" -(J-pop.com overview)