is a noted Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese author and professor of creative writing at Tokai University

Tokai University

is a private university in Tokyo, Japan. It was established in 1943 by Shigeyoshi Matsumae, who had formerly been the engineering president of the Ministry of Communications...

's Shonan campus.

A native of Nobeoka, Miyazaki

Nobeoka, Miyazaki

is the northernmost city located in Miyazaki, Japan.-Population:As of the January 1, 2008 merger, the city has an estimated population of 130,435 and a population density of 150 persons per km². The total area is 867.97 km².-History:...

, Ii graduated in 1978 from Keio University

Keio University

,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

 with a degree in history (archaeology and ethnology). His first novel, Kusakanmuri (The Grass Radical), was published in 1983, and received the Gunzo Prize for New Writers. Subsequent prizes include:

• 1989 Noma Literary Prize
  Noma Literary Prize
  The Noma Literary Prize was established in 1941 by the Noma Service Association in accordance with the last wishes of Noma Seiji , founder and first president of the Kōdansha publishing company. The Noma Literary Prize has been awarded annually to an outstanding new work published in Japan...
  
   for New Writers, for Sashite juyo denai ichinichi (A Day of Little Importance)
• 1994 Hirabayashi Taiko Prize, for Shinka no tokei (Evolution Clock)
• 2000 Yomiuri Literary Prize, for Nigotta gekiryu ni kakaru hashi (Bridge Over a Muddy Torrent)

English translations

• My visit to the Yubijima Isles, translated by M. Jacob and edited by Harry Aveling, Bundoora, Vic. : La Trobe University, School of Asian Studies, 1996. 18 pages.
• Aoneko kazoku tentenroku (The Shadow of a Blue Cat), translated by Wayne P. Lammers. Champaign, IL and London: Dalkey Archive Press
  Dalkey Archive Press
  Dalkey Archive Press is a publisher of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in Illinois in the United States, specializing in the publication or republication of lesser known, often avant-garde works...
  
  , 2011.