Banana Yoshimoto

Banana Yoshimoto (吉本 ばなな, Yoshimoto Banana, born 24 July 1964^[1]) is the pen name of Japanese writer Mahoko Yoshimoto (吉本 真秀子, Yoshimoto Mahoko). From 2002 to 2015, she wrote her name in hiragana (よしもと ばなな).

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, Haruno Yoiko, 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."^[2]

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."^{[citation needed]} Between 2008 and 2010, she maintained an online journal for English-speaking fans.^[3]

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^[4] and a more widely released version titled Wo ai chu fang, produced in Hong Kong by Ho Yim in 1997.^[5]

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.^[6] 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.^[7]

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.^[8] 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.^[9][10]

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".^[11]

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.^[12] Yoshimoto's works play upon the duality of traditional and contemporary values, and separetely reality and dreams blending to form a distinct narrative style. Her postmodern style often favors the chatacter's internal world and development over convention plot structure and is open for and encourages one own's interpretations.^[13]

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.^{[citation needed]} Also manga artist Yumiko Ōshima was an inspiration.^[14]

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.^[15]

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.

References

1. ^ "Banana Yoshimoto". Faber & Faber. Archived 2015-12-23 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
2. ^ "Banana Yoshimoto". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived 2009-02-11 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
3. ^ Yoshimoto, Banana. "My Journal". Archived 2017-03-17 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
4. ^ Morita, Yoshimitsu (1989-10-29), "Kitchen" (Drama, Romance), Wako International, retrieved 2021-11-25
5. ^ Yim, Ho (Director) (1997). Kitchen. IMDb.
6. ^ "Banana Yoshimoto". Counterpoint Press. 3 May 2016. Archived August 19, 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
7. ^ Ichikawa, Jun (Director) (1990). Tsugumi. IMDb. Archived 2019-12-13 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2018-07-01.
8. ^ Copeland, Rebecca L. (2006). Woman Critiqued: Translated Essays on Japanese Women's Writing. University of Hawaii Press. p. 167. ISBN 0-8248-2958-1. Archived 2016-05-29 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2015-10-18.
9. ^ Lee, KyungNam (April 1, 2013). "Lee Seung Gi to Appear as Lead in New Yoshimoto Banana Novel". mwave. Archived December 8, 2015 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 30, 2015.
10. ^ Lent, Jesse (April 2, 2013). "Lee Seung Gi To Appear As Hero In Upcoming Banana Yoshimoto Romance Novel 'Shall We Love' For Women's Magazine Anan". kpopstarz.com. Archived December 8, 2015 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 30, 2015.
11. ^ "Banana Yoshimoto and the young". March 26, 2012. Archived November 4, 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
12. ^ Treat, John Whittier (Summer 1993). "Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: Shojo Culture and the Nostalgic Subject". Journal of Japanese Studies. 19 (2): 353–387. doi:10.2307/132644. JSTOR 132644
13. ^ Hang, Dao Thi Thu; Bac, Le Huy; Phuong, Le Nguyen; Ha, Pham Thi (2022-10-30). "Hybrid narrative in Yoshimoto Banana’s Kitchen". Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 9 (1): 396. doi:10.1057/s41599-022-01416-w. ISSN 2662-9992
14. ^ Schodt, Frederik L. (2011). Dreamland Japan : writings on modern manga. Berkeley, California. p. 292. ISBN 978-1-933330-95-2. OCLC 731210677
15. ^ "Banana Yoshimoto wins Italian literary prize". Melville House. 26 May 2011. Archived from the original on 24 November 2022. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
16. ^ "Review: 'Dead-End Memories,' by Banana Yoshimoto". The New York Times. 2022-07-30.
17. ^ ""Dead-End Memories" by Banana Yoshimoto". Asian Review of Books. 2022-08-10. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
18. ^ Leow, Florentyna (2022-07-17). "Banana Yoshimoto's 'Dead-End Memories' is the literary equivalent of a lo-fi playlist". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2023-08-15.

External links

• Official website
• Article from Metropolis
• Bananamania
• Romantic Love in the Early Fiction of Banana Yoshimoto Archived 2020-07-20 at the Wayback Machine
• "Banana Yoshimoto's brand-new era" -(J-pop.com overview)