Michiko Yamamoto

Michiko Yamamoto ( Japanese 山 本 道 子 , Yamamoto Michiko , real name: Furuya Michiko ( 古屋 道 子 ); born December 4, 1936 in Nakano , Tokyo Prefecture ) is a Japanese writer.

The daughter of an elevator manufacturer studied literature at the Atomi Gakuen Women's Short University . From the late 1950s she published several volumes of poetry, including Tsubo no naka ( 壷 の 中 ; 1959), Midori-iro no hitsujitachi to hitori ( み ど り い ろ の 羊 た ち と 一 人 ; 1960), Kago ( 籠 ; 1961) and Kazaru ( 飾 る , 1962). In 1965 she married Furuya Kazuyoshi, an employee of the Japanese Fisheries Society, with whom she lived in Darwin, Australia from 1967 to 1971.

This is where the short story Mahō ( 魔法 ) was written, for which she received the Shinchō Prize for Young Authors in 1971 . Encouraged by Minakami Tsutomu , she wrote the story Betty-san no niwa ( ベ テ ィ さ ん の 庭 ) after her return to Japan , for which she received the 1973 Akutagawa Prize .

In the following years three volumes of short stories appeared: Razō ( 裸 像 ; 1974), Umi to satōkibi ( 海 と 砂糖 黍 ; 1975) and Shōnen no koe ( 少年 の 声 ; 1977); Yamamoto also published numerous essays and in 1976 the collection of poems Yamamoto Michiko shishū ( 山 本 道 子 詩集 ; 1976).

From 1978 to 1982 she lived in Seattle with her husband. It was here that she wrote her first novel Tenshi yo umi ni mae ( 天使 よ 海 に 舞 え ; 1981) and the novel Hito no ki ( ひ と の 樹 ), for which she received the 1985 Women's Literature Prize.

swell

• Yamamoto Michiko . In: Chieko Irie Mulhern (Ed.): Japanese Women Writers: A Bio-critical Sourcebook . Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994, ISBN 0-313-25486-9 , pp. 464–471 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Sachiko Shibata Schierbeck, Marlene R. Edelstein: Japanese Women Novelists in the 20th Century: 104 Biographies, 1900-1993 . Museum Tusculanum Press, 1994, ISBN 87-7289-268-4 , p. 243–246 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• J. Scott Miller: The A to Z of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater . Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-7615-6 , pp. 142 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Rebecca L. Copeland: Woman Critiqued: Translated Essays on Japanese Women's Writing . University of Hawaii Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8248-2958-1 , pp. 251 ( limited preview in Google Book search).