Banana Yoshimoto

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Banana Yoshimoto (Japanese: 吉本ばなな Yoshimoto Banana, born July 24, 1964) is the pen name of Mahoko Yoshimoto (吉本真秀子 Yoshimoto Mahoko), a Japanese contemporary writer. As of 2003, she writes her name in hiragana.

Yoshimoto, daughter of Takaaki Yoshimoto (also known as Ryūmei Yoshimoto, one of the most famous and influential Japanese philosophers and critics of the 1960s), was born in Tokyo on July 24, 1964. Along with having a famous father, Banana Yoshimoto's sister, Haruno Yoiko is a well-known cartoonist in Japan. Growing up in a liberal family, she learned the value of independence from a young age.

She graduated from Nihon University's Art College, majoring in Literature. During that time, she took the pseudonym "Banana," a name she both recognizes as "cute" and "purposefully androgynous."

In 1987, working as a waitress at a golf-club restaurant, Yoshimoto began her writing career. She names American author Stephen King as one of her major initial influences, especially drawing inspiration from his non-horror stories. As her writing progressed, she gained influence from literary heavyweights Truman Capote and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Her debut novel, Kitchen, was a phenomenal instant success, having over sixty printings in Japan alone. There have been two films made of the story, a Japanese TV movie and a more widely released version produced in Hong Kong by Yim Ho in 1997. She won the 6th Kaien Newcomer Writers Prize in November 1987, the Umitsubame First Novel Prize and then the 16th Izumi Kyoka Literary Prize in January 1988, for Kitchen.

Another one of her novels, Goodbye Tsugumi was also made into a movie in 1990, directed by Ichikawa Jun. The novel received mixed reviews. Critics think much of her work is superficial and commercial; her fans however, thinks it captures perfectly what it means to be young and frustrated in modern Japan. Yoshimoto herself identifies her two main themes as "the exhaustion of young people in contemporary Japan" and "the way in which terrible experiences shape a person's life." Her novels can be fun and escapist, but always touched with Japanese traditional ideology. Her writing can be quite piercing, haunting, and poignant, yet darkly humorous at once. Though critics believe her to be merely "lightweight," Yoshimoto unabashadly states that she aims to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.

In addition, she was awarded the 39th edition, Best Newcomer Artists Recommended by the Minister of Education in August 1988 for Kitchen and Utakata/Sankuchuari. In March 1989 her piece, TSUGUMI was awarded the 2nd Yamamoto Shugoro Literary Prize. In 1994 her first long novel, Amrita, was awarded the Murasakishikibu Prize.

Her works include twelve novels and seven collections of essays (including Pineapple Pudding and Song From Banana). Her works have 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.

Image:Yoshimoto2.jpg

Despite her success, Yoshimoto remains a somewhat down-to-earth and obscure figure. Whenever she appears in public she eschews make-up and dresses simply. She seems impervious to bad reviews (in spite of which her novels sell incredibly well). She keeps her personal life guarded, revealing little about her musician husband and son Manachinko (born in 2003). Instead, she talks about her writing. Each day she takes half an hour to write at her computer, saying "I tend to feel guilty because I write these stories almost for fun." She keeps an on-line journal for her English speaking fans.

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

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