is the pen name of Japanese writer . From 2002 to 2015, she wrote her name in hiragana ().
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, , 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."
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." Between 2008 and 2010, she maintained an online journal for English-speaking fans.
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 and a more widely released version titled Wo ai chu fang, produced in Hong Kong by Ho Yim in 1997.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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".
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. 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.
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. Also manga artist Yumiko Ōshima was an inspiration.
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.
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 titleDirect English title translationOfficial English titleJapanese publication dateEnglish publication dateMoonlight Shadow 1986 1993 (included in most editions of Kitchen)Kitchen19881993Transient/Sanctuary1988The Premonition19882023Goodbye Tsugumi19892002Asleep19892000N.P19901994Lizard19931995Amrita19941997Marika's lengthy night・Dreamlog in Bali1994Hachiko's last lover1994Sly1996Honeymoon1997Hardboiled & Hard Luck19992005Occult (Collection of essays selected by the author 1)2000Love (Collection of essays selected by the author 2) 2000Death (Collection of essays selected by the author 3)2001Life (Collection of essays selected by the author 4)2001The body knows everything2000Adultery and South America2000Daisy's Life 2000Andromeda Heights (Kingdoms, first installment) 2002Rainbow 2002Argentine Hag (with drawings and pictures by Yoshitomo Nara) 2002 2002 Also published in English by RockinOnCloak of feathers 2003 Dead-End Memories 2003 2022Don't worry, be happy 2004 High and dry (first love) 2004 Lid of the sea 2004 The shadow of lost things, and ensuing magic (Kingdoms, second installment) 2004 The secret flower garden (Kingdoms, third installment) 2005 The Lake20052010Dolphin or Are you there?2006Salamander or The small shadow2006Chie and I2007Hawaii dreaming2007South point2008About her or About my girlfriend2008Moshi-Moshi: A Novel20102016The acorn sisters2010Another world (Kingdoms, fourth installment)2010Sizzle sizzle2010Sweet hereafter2011A night with Saki and friends2013Hostess bar stumble2013Shall We Love?2013Take an afternoon nap on a bed of flowers2013Birds2014Circus night2015Funafuna Funabashi2015
References
External links
Article from Metropolis Bananamania Romantic Love in the Early Fiction of Banana Yoshimoto "Banana Yoshimoto's brand-new era" -(J-pop.com overview)