Yoko Ogawa
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese
writer.
, graduated from Waseda University
, and lives in Ashiya, Hyōgo
, with her husband and son. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Professor's Beloved Equation has been made into a movie. In 2006 she co-authored "An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics" with Masahiko Fujiwara
, a mathematician, as a dialogue on the extraordinary beauty of numbers.
A film in French, L'Annulaire
(The Ringfinger), directed by Diane Bertrand, starring Olga Kurylenko
(the new Bond girl
in her film début) and Marc Barbé, with a soundtrack by Beth Gibbons
, was released in France in June 2005 and subsequently made the rounds of the international film festivals; the film, some of which is filmed in the Hamburg docks, is based in part on Ogawa's Kusuriyubi no hyōhon (薬指の標本), translated into French as L'Annulaire (by Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle who has translated numerous works by Ogawa, as well as works by Akira Yoshimura
and by Edogawa Rampo
, into French). (The dockland setting and a significant subplot owe nothing to Ogawa's novella. Interestingly, in conversation with the audience after a showing of the film at the Edinburgh Film Festival, 2006, Diane Bertrand said that she was not sure that she understood the book.)
Kenzaburō Ōe
has said, "Yoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating." The subtlety in part lies in the fact that Ogawa's characters often seem not to know why they are doing what they are doing. She works by accumulation of detail, a technique that is perhaps more successful in her shorter works; the slow pace of development in the longer works requires something of a deus ex machina
to end them. The reader is presented with an acute description of what the protagonists, mostly but not always female, observe and feel and their somewhat alienated self-observations, some of which is a reflection of Japanese society and especially women's roles within in it. The tone of her works varies, across the works and sometimes within the longer works, from the surreal, through the grotesque and the —sometimes grotesquely— humorous, to the psychologically ambiguous and even disturbing. (Hotel Iris, one of her longer works, is more explicit sexually than her other works and is also her most widely translated.)
Other works (some translated to French)
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
writer.
Biography
Ogawa was born in Okayama, Okayama PrefectureOkayama Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Okayama.- History :During the Meiji Restoration, the area of Okayama Prefecture was known as Bitchū Province, Bizen Province and Mimasaka Province.- Geography :...
, graduated from Waseda University
Waseda University
, abbreviated as , is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan and Asia. Its main campuses are located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed "Waseda University" in 1902. It is known for its liberal climate...
, and lives in Ashiya, Hyōgo
Ashiya, Hyogo
is a city founded on November 10, 1940 located in Hyōgo, Japan, between the cities of Osaka and Kobe.-Demographics:As of 2009, the city has an estimated population of 93,094 and the density of 5,030 persons per km². The total area is 18.47 km²...
, with her husband and son. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Professor's Beloved Equation has been made into a movie. In 2006 she co-authored "An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics" with Masahiko Fujiwara
Masahiko Fujiwara
Masahiko Fujiwara is a Japanese mathematician, who is best known as an essayist....
, a mathematician, as a dialogue on the extraordinary beauty of numbers.
A film in French, L'Annulaire
L'Annulaire
L'Annulaire is a French film released on June 8, 2005. It was written and directed by Diane Bertrand. The film is referred to as The Ring Finger in Australia.-Plot:...
(The Ringfinger), directed by Diane Bertrand, starring Olga Kurylenko
Olga Kurylenko
Olha Kostyantynivna Kurylenko , better known as Olga Kurylenko, is a French actress and model. She is perhaps best known as the Bond girl, Camille Montes, in the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. She also portrayed Nika Boronina in the movie adaptation of the video game Hitman...
(the new Bond girl
Bond girl
A Bond girl is a character or actress portraying a love interest, of James Bond in a film, novel, or video game. They occasionally have names that are double entendres or puns, such as "Pussy Galore", "Plenty O'Toole", "Xenia Onatopp", or "Holly Goodhead"...
in her film début) and Marc Barbé, with a soundtrack by Beth Gibbons
Beth Gibbons
Beth Gibbons is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist for the iconic British band Portishead.-Early life:...
, was released in France in June 2005 and subsequently made the rounds of the international film festivals; the film, some of which is filmed in the Hamburg docks, is based in part on Ogawa's Kusuriyubi no hyōhon (薬指の標本), translated into French as L'Annulaire (by Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle who has translated numerous works by Ogawa, as well as works by Akira Yoshimura
Akira Yoshimura
was a prize winning Japanese writer.He was the president of the Japanese writers' union and a PEN member. He published over 20 novels, of which On Parole and Shipwrecks are internationally known and have been translated into several languages...
and by Edogawa Rampo
Edogawa Rampo
, better known by the pseudonym , was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogorō Akechi, who in later books was the leader of a group of boy detectives known as the .Rampo was an admirer...
, into French). (The dockland setting and a significant subplot owe nothing to Ogawa's novella. Interestingly, in conversation with the audience after a showing of the film at the Edinburgh Film Festival, 2006, Diane Bertrand said that she was not sure that she understood the book.)
Kenzaburō Ōe
Kenzaburo Oe
is a Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism.Ōe was awarded...
has said, "Yoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating." The subtlety in part lies in the fact that Ogawa's characters often seem not to know why they are doing what they are doing. She works by accumulation of detail, a technique that is perhaps more successful in her shorter works; the slow pace of development in the longer works requires something of a deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
to end them. The reader is presented with an acute description of what the protagonists, mostly but not always female, observe and feel and their somewhat alienated self-observations, some of which is a reflection of Japanese society and especially women's roles within in it. The tone of her works varies, across the works and sometimes within the longer works, from the surreal, through the grotesque and the —sometimes grotesquely— humorous, to the psychologically ambiguous and even disturbing. (Hotel Iris, one of her longer works, is more explicit sexually than her other works and is also her most widely translated.)
Prizes
- 1988 Kaien literary Prize(BenesseBenesseis a Japanese company which focusses on correspondence education and publishing. Based in Okayama-City, it is the parent company of Berlitz Language Schools, which in turn is the parent company of ELS Language Centers...
) for her debut Disintegration of the Butterfly (Agehacho ga kowareru toki, 揚羽蝶が壊れる時) - 1990 Akutagawa PrizeAkutagawa PrizeThe is a Japanese literary award presented semi-annually. It was established in 1935 by Kan Kikuchi, then-editor of Bungeishunjū magazine, in memory of author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa...
for Pregnancy Calendar (Ninshin karendaa, 妊娠 カレンダー) - 2004 Yomiuri PrizeYomiuri PrizeThe is a prestigious literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1948 by the Yomiuri Shinbun Company to help form a "cultural nation". The winner is awarded one million Japanese yen and an inkstone.-Award categories:...
for The Professor's Beloved Equation (Hakase no aishita sushiki, 博士の愛した数式; translated as The Gift of Numbers) - 2004 Kyoka IzumiKyoka Izumiis the pen name of a Japanese author of novels, short stories, and kabuki plays who was active from the late Meiji to the early Shōwa periods. He is best known for a characteristic brand of Romanticism preferring tales of the supernatural heavily influenced by works of the earlier Edo period in...
Prize for Burafuman no maisō, ブラフマンの埋葬 - 2006 Tanizaki PrizeTanizaki PrizeThe Tanizaki Prize , named in honor of the Japanese novelist Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, is one of Japan's most sought-after literary awards. It was established in 1965 by the publishing company Chūō Kōronsha Inc. to commemorate its 80th anniversary as a publisher...
for Meena's March (Mīna no kōshin, ミーナの行進) - 2008 Shirley Jackson Award for "The Diving Pool"
Works in English translation
- The Man Who Sold Braces (Gibusu o uru hito, ギブスを売る人, 1998); translated by Shibata Motoyuki, Manoa, 13.1, 2001.
- Transit (Toranjitto, トランジット, 1996); translated by Alisa Freedman, Japanese Art: The Scholarship and Legacy of Chino Kaori, special issue of Review of Japanese Culture and Society, vol. XV (Center for Inter-Cultural Studies and Education, Josai University, December 2003): 114-125. ISSN 0913-4700
- The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain (Yūgure no kyūshoku shitsu to ame no pūru, 夕暮れの給食室と雨のプール, 1991); translated by Stephen Snyder, The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, 9/2004. read - Pregnancy Diary (Ninshin karendā, 妊娠カレンダー, 1991); translated by Stephen Snyder, The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, 12/2005. read - The Gift of Numbers (Hakase no ai shita sūshiki, 博士の愛した数式, 2003); translated by Yosei Sugawara, New York : Picador, 2006. ISBN 0-312-42597-X - Not currently available on amazon.com, and not really clear whether it was ever published at all; however, recently resurfaced in a different translation (see below).
- The Diving Pool: Three Novellas (Daibingu puru, ダイヴィング・プール, 1990; Ninshin karendā, 妊娠カレンダー, 1991; Dormitory, ドミトリイ, 1991); translated by Stephen Snyder, New York: Picador, 2008. ISBN 0-312-42683-6
- The Housekeeper and the Professor (Hakase no ai shita sūshiki, 博士の愛した数式, 2003); translated by Stephen Snyder, New York : Picador, 2008. ISBN 0-312-42780-8 (years ago announced as "The Gift of Numbers" in a different translation)
- Hotel Iris (Hoteru Airisu, ホテル・アイリス, 1996; available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Greek, Italian, Slovene)
Other works
Most frequently translated (though not yet in English)- The Ring Finger (Kusuriyubi no hyōhon, 薬指の標本, 1994; available in French, German, Greek, Italian)
- Love in the Margin (Yohaku no ai, 余白の愛, 1991; available in French, German)
- The Museum of Silence (Chinmoku hakubutsukan, 沈黙博物館, 2000; available in French, German)
Other works (some translated to French)
- Kanpeki na byōshitsu, 完璧な病室, 1989
- Agehachō ga kowareru toki, 揚羽蝶が壊れる時, 1989, Kaien Prize
- Same nai kōcha, 冷めない紅茶, 1990
- Shugā taimu, シュガータイム, 1991
- Angelina sano motoharu to 10 no tanpen, アンジェリーナ―佐野元春と10の短編, 1993
- Yōsei ga mai oriru yoru, 妖精が舞い下りる夜, 1993
- Hisoyaka na kesshō, 密やかな結晶, 1994
- Rokukakukei no shō heya, 六角形の小部屋, 1994
- Anne Furanku no kioku, アンネ・フランクの記憶, 1995
- Shishū suru shōjo, 刺繍する少女, 1996
- Yasashī uttae, やさしい訴え, 1996
- Kōritsui ta kaori, 凍りついた香り, 1998
- Kamoku na shigai, midara na tomurai, 寡黙な死骸みだらな弔い, 1998
- in German: Das Ende des Bengalischen Tigers. Ein Roman in elf Geschichten. Liebeskind, München 2011. ISBN 978-3-935890-75-5.
- Fukaki kokoro no soko yori, 深き心の底より, 1999
- Gūzen no shukufuku, 偶然の祝福, 2000
- Mabuta, まぶた, 2001
- Kifujin A no sosei, 貴婦人Aの蘇生, 2002
- Burafuman no maisō, ブラフマンの埋葬, 2004, Izumi Prize
- Yo ni mo utsukushī sūgaku nyūmon, 世にも美しい数学入門, 2005 (An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics)
- Inu no shippo o nade nagara, 犬のしっぽを撫でながら, 2006
- Otogibanashi no wasuremono, おとぎ話の忘れ物, 2006 (illustrated)
- Mīna no kōshin, ミーナの行進, 2006 (illustrated), Tanizaki Prize
- Umi, 海 2006
- Ogawa Yōko taiwa shū, 小川洋子 対話集, 2007 (conversations)
- Monogatari no yakuwari, 物語の役割, 2007
- Neko wo idaite zou to oyogu, 猫を抱いて象と泳ぐ, 2009
- Genkou reimai nikki, 原稿零枚日記, 2010
- Hitojichi no roudokukai, 人質の朗読会, 2011
External links
- Audio of Ogawa's English-language translator, Stephen Snyder, discussing his work with her, Center for the Art of Translation