Miyamoto, Teru 1947-

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Miyamoto, Teru 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born March 6, 1947, in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. Education: Otemon Gakuin University, graduated.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, New Directions Publishing Company, 80 8th Ave., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER:

Writer. During early career, worked as a copy writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Dazai Osamu Prize, 1977, for Doro no Kawa; Akutagawa Prize, 1978, for Hotarugawa; Yoshikawa Eiji Literature Prize, for Yu-Shun.

WRITINGS:

Hotarugawa (title means "Firefly River"), 1978.

Ao ga chiru, Bungei Shunju (Tokyo, Japan), 1982.

Kinshu (novel), Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1982, translated by Roger K. Thomas as Kinshu: Autumn Brocade, New Directions (New York, NY), 2005.

Inochi no utsuwa, Kodansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1983.

Haru no yume, Bungei Shunju Showa (Tokyo, Japan), 1984.

Michiyuku hitotachi to: taidanshu, Bungei Shunju Showa (Tokyo, Japan), 1984.

Donau no tabibito, Asahi Shinbunsha Showa (Tokyo, Japan), 1985.

Yumemidori no hitobito (title means "The People of Dream Street"), 1989.

Umibe no tobira, Kadokawa Shoten, Heisei 3 (Tokyo, Japan), 1991.

Miyamoto Teru zenshu = Bibliotheca Teru Miyamoto, fourteen volumes, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1992–93.

Inoue Yasushi, Shinchosha (Tokyo, Japan), 1993.

Also author of the novels Doro no Kawa (title means "Mud River"); and Yu-Shun.

ADAPTATIONS:

The short stories "Doro no Kawa," "Hotarugawa," and "Maborosi" have all been adapted to film.

SIDELIGHTS:

Teru Miyamoto is a prolific Japanese writer of novels, short stories, and essays. As noted by Anthony Hood Chambers in the Literary Review, the author often writes about "poor people scraping by in Japan's ‘second city,’ Osaka," such as in his novel Yumemidori no hitobito ("The People of Dream Street"). Miyamoto's novel Kinshu was translated by Roger K. Thomas and published as Kinshu: Autumn Brocade. The novel tells the story of Aki and Yasuaki, a young, successful, happily married couple who divorce following Yasuaki's affair with a nightclub hostess, who tries to kill him and commits suicide at the same time. Yasuaki and Aki meet again about a decade later at a resort, where each finds that their lives have never again reached the happiness they once had together; Yasuaki has gone into debt to gangsters and Aki is unhappily married. Shirley N. Quan, writing in Library Journal, noted that the "novel features a distinctly compelling narrative," while San Francisco Chronicle contributor William Cherau commented that the author "writes with an unfaltering, quiet authority." "Miyamoto's gentle touch with these well-meaning and generally honorable characters lends subtle drama to his treatise on loss," concluded a Kirkus Reviews contributor.