Minako Ōba

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Minako Ōba ( Japanese 大 庭 み な 子 , Ōba Minako , actual spelling 大 庭 美奈子 ; born November 11, 1930 in Tokyo  ; † May 24, 2007 ) was a Japanese writer .

Life

Ōba Minako was the second child of a Japanese housewife, Mutsuko, and a doctor, Saburō. The latter was born in Asahi, Inashiki County, Ibaraki Prefecture in 1894, the son of a wealthy tea merchant. In 1915 he moved to Niigata to study at the Medical College. He fell in love with Takiko, Mutsuko's second oldest sister, married her and had a son with her. When Takiko died of pulmonary tuberculosis, Mutsuko and the widower married at the will of the deceased. With her he fathered a son and two daughters, of whom Minako was the elder. Ōba Minako comes from an educated household. The two uncles on her mother's side had also studied, the two aunts and their mother graduated from the Lyceum.

Her mother was a moga , a "modern girl," which meant that she dressed westernly. As she recalls in her autobiography, she only wore a Japanese hairstyle once and that was on her wedding day. After completing his studies, the father began to work in the Ministry of the Navy , which is why the family moved to Tokyo, where Ōba Minako was born. Her mother attended an expensive western dressmaking school and an English school in town. She continued her studies after Minako was born. Until she started school in 1937, she was raised by a wet nurse who also taught her to write and taught her to “feel something when reading”, for example when reading Hansel and Gretel . As a child she learned to play dance and shamisen with her younger sister .

The maternal household was interested in literature, which is why Minako read the magazines "Neue Strömung" and "Welt der Literatur" as a child. The father had only read Tolstoy's Resurrection and The Sorrows of Hugo, the mother also read Japanese literature, for example Tanizaki Jun'ichirō , which the father disliked as "amoral lecherous literature". The mother's eldest sister was an amateur writer. The mother adored Kitahara Hakushū , Yoshii Isamu and Yosano Akiko and wrote poems in their style. In the twilight years the mother valued Saigyō and Sankashū was her night reading. Her maternal grandfather, Morita Shōkasu, who also wrote, introduced her to the work of Bai Juyis . The parents' library supplied them with the "Collected Works of Japanese Contemporary Literature" from the Konzōsha Publishing House , the "Collected Works of Meiji and Taisho Literature" from Shunyōdō , the "Collected Works of World Literature" from Shinchōsha , the series "Novels of Japanese Literature ", The" Collected Writings of the Philosophy of the World "and the series" Dramas of World Literature "from the Shunjūsha publishing house . In addition, the collected works of Victor Hugo , Natsume Sōseki and Higuchi Ichiyōs were found there . She exchanged information with her mother about what she had read. When she attended the lower classes of the lyceum - still during the war - the books by Gustave Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant were taken away from her at school . Since reading liberal Japanese literature and Western literature in general was problematic in school, she read it at home and in the field. B. the collection of poems Manyōshū and the saga Heike Monogatari . During the war, her father was the director of a naval hospital in Shanghai. Before the war, the father had accompanied the princes Takamatsu and Kuninomiya on a trip abroad, but the family had neither set up photographs of the imperial family nor a Shinto house altar ( kamidana ) during the war . At the end of the war the family lived near Hiroshima, and Minako and her class are doing relief work. She processed these experiences in the fictional story "Urashima Herb", which was published in 1974. Since the father was unemployed, the family lived after World War II in Niigata , the mother's birthplace, which was not bombed. There the father practiced as a country doctor and Minako attended elementary school. She also attended Onari Elementary School in Kamakura at another time . During her childhood, Minako read Grimm's fairy tales , Greek myths and the stories from the Arabian Nights , because she liked them better than the Japanese fairy tales shortened by censorship and didactic considerations. In the fifth grade of elementary school, she began to write her own fairy tales, which she was sometimes allowed to tell the class.

As a high school student she privately read novels Chikamatsu Shūkōs , Tokuda Shūseis and Uno Kōjis and in school, besides working at the sewing machine, courtly literature such as the story of Prince Genji , the story of the young lady in the dungeon and the Sarashina diary, as the high school library is only classical had Japanese literature in stock. She also read when she had to interrupt her field service because of the bombing raids. In her autobiography, Minako states that her mother has been her "only literary friend" since childhood. When she lived abroad for over ten years, her mother used literary magazines as crumpling paper for the parcels, keeping her daughter informed about this. In one of these magazines, Gunzō , a young talent award was advertised, which Minako won with the story "Three Crabs" ( 三 匹 の 蟹 , Sambiki no kani ). However, the author had doubts as to whether her mother would take her work seriously. The mother, who was not employed herself, always expressed the wish that her daughter should not be employed but marry well.

Ōba Minako attended the Tsuda Women's University ( 津 田 塾 大学 , Tsudajuku Daigaku ) after graduating from the Lyceum . After she had finished studying English literature in 1953, she initially worked as a teacher until health problems prevented her from doing so. Two years later she married Toshio, an engineer she knew as a student, and moved with him to Sitka , Alaska in 1959 . While still a student she took part in competitions for young literary talents, albeit unsuccessfully, but was not discouraged by failure and continued to write. During the ten years she was abroad she wrote. "It's like singing, when you hum to yourself while hanging your clothes without any audience and without being asked - something that comes to mind spontaneously and naturally". In 1970, two years after she had received the Young Talent Award and the Akutagawa Prize , she moved from Alaska, also because of her daughter's schooling, back to Japan, where she lived in Tokyo and owned a country house on the Izu Peninsula . She counted Kawabata Yasunari and Takahashi Takako among her friends.

In 1984 she published her autobiography under the title "Tanze, Schneck, Tanz". The title goes back to a life-affirming poem from the Ryōjin hishō , which her Japanese teacher recited to the class after the end of the war, when classes began again. In addition to the abbreviated autobiography, the German novel “Träume fischen” ( Tsuga no yume ) is also available. In 1991 the Kōdansha publishing house published a preliminary complete edition of her work, which, in addition to short stories and novels, also includes essays, plays, scripts and travelogues. In the 1993 novel "Two Hundred Years" she processed her family history into literary prose.

In 1987 she and Taeko Kōno became the first woman to be a member of the selection committee of the Akutagawa Prize, in which she worked until 1997.

In 1991 she became a member of the Japanese Academy of Arts and Vice President of the Pen Club. Ōba also appeared as a militant advocate of feminism . In 1996 she suffered a cerebral infarction, which from then on confined her to a wheelchair and which also caused her death in 2007.

subjects

In addition to the scenes of the novel happening in America, which were still unusual for the time, in her award-winning first work, the “search for female identity and the representation of the relationship between the sexes” is the central theme in Ōba's work. Her works are characterized by a dense narrative style of dreams, memories of experiences that go back to the time in Alaska, and myths of the Eskimos. In the field of tension between human relationships, she also does away with the “cliché of the chaste, strict Japanese housewife”. With a critical look at society, she also addresses the principle that modern humans are lost.

Prizes and awards

Works (selection)

  • 1968 Sambiki no kani ( 三 匹 の 蟹 )
  • 1970 Funakuimushi ( ふ な く い 虫 )
  • 1970 Yūreitachi no fukkatsusai ( 幽 霊 達 の 復活 祭 )
  • 1971 Sabita kotoba ( ふ な く い 虫 )
  • 1971 Shishu sabita kotoba ( ふ な く い 虫 )
  • 1971 Tsuga no yume ( 栂 の 夢 )
    • German: fish dreams . Translated from the Japanese by Bruno Rhyner. Insel 1990. ISBN 3458161031 .
  • 1971 Uo no namida ( 魚 の 泪 )
  • 1972 Kokyū o hiku tori ( 胡 弓 を 弾 く 鳥 )
  • 1973 Yasō no yume ( 野草 の 夢 )
  • 1975 Aoi kitsune ( 青 い 狐 )
  • 1975 Garakuta hakubutsukan ( が ら く た 博物館 )
  • 1977 Urashimasō ( 浦 島 草 )
  • 1978 Aoi chiisana hanashi ( 蒼 い 小 さ な 話 )
  • 1978 Samete miru yume ( 醒 め て 見 る 夢 )
  • 1979 Hana to mushi no kioku ( 花 と 虫 の 記憶 )
  • 1979 Onna no danseiron ( 女 の 男性 論 )
  • 1979 Taidan, sei to shite no onna ( 対 談 ・ 性 と し て の 女 )
  • 1979 Tankō ( 淡 交 )
  • 1982 Katachi mo naku (寂 兮 寥 兮（か た ち も な く）)
  • 1982 Shima no kuni no shima ( 島 の 国 の 島 )
  • 1984 Kakeru otoko no yokogao ( 駈 け る 男 の 横 顔 )
  • 1984 Mae mae katatsumuri ( 舞 へ 舞 へ 蝸牛 )
  • 1985 Naku tori no ( 啼 く 鳥 の )
  • 1985 Onna, otoko, inochi ( 女 ・ 男 ・ い の ち )
  • 1987 Onna ( 女 )
  • 1989 Man'yōshū ( 万 葉 集 )
  • 1992 Kaoru ki no uta: haha ​​to musume no ōfuku shokan ( 郁 る 樹 の 詩: 母 と 娘 の 往復 書簡 )
  • 1993 Nihyakunen ( 二 百年 )
  • 1993 Yuki ( 雪 )
  • 1995 Warabeuta mutan ( わ ら べ 唄 夢 譚 )

Translations (selection)

  • 1973 Ikari to ryōshin: Jinju modai o kataru ( 怒 り と 良心: 人種 問題 を 語 る )
  • 1992 Koten no tanoshimi ( 古典 の 愉 し み )
    • Original: The Pleasures of Japanese Literature by Donald Keene

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 62.
  2. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 35.
  3. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 42.
  4. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 63.
  5. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 53.
  6. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 14.
  7. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 17.
  8. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 18.
  9. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 57.
  10. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 96 f.
  11. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 97.
  12. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 98.
  13. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 98.
  14. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 74.
  15. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 107.
  16. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 109.
  17. ↑ Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit , afterword. In: Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, pp. 141–150, p. 148.
  18. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 9.
  19. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 8.
  20. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 9.
  21. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 8.
  22. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 45.
  23. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 113.
  24. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 114.
  25. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 115.
  26. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 117.
  27. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 118.
  28. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 18.
  29. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 100.
  30. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 100.
  31. ↑ Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, afterword. In: Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, pp. 141–150, p. 148.
  32. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 134.
  33. ^ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 131.
  34. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 79.
  35. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 45.
  36. ↑ Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, p. 127.
  37. ↑ Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, afterword. In: Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, pp. 141–150, p. 149.
  38. ↑ Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, afterword. In: Ōba Minako, Tanze, Schneck, Tanz , Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, pp. 141–150, p. 150.
  39. ^ Mario Ambrosius: Snapshots of modern Japanese literature. Silver & Goldstein, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-927463-10-8 , pp. 76-77.
  40. ^ Mario Ambrosius: Snapshots of modern Japanese literature. P. 76.
  41. ↑ http://webcatplus.nii.ac.jp/webcatplus/details/book/7549474.html
  42. ↑ https://www.lib.city.kobe.jp/opac/opacs/find_detailbook?pvolid=PV%3A0005148701&type=CtlgBook&mode=one_line&kobeid=CT%3A0307310781
personal data
SURNAME Ōba, Minako
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 大 庭 み な 子 (Japanese); Ōba Minako (real name); 大 庭 美奈子 (Japanese, real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo prefecture
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 2007