Banana Yoshimoto

Banana Yoshimoto (よしもと ばなな, Yoshimoto Banana^?, July 24, 1964, Tokyo), pen name Mahoko Yoshimoto (吉本 真秀子, Yoshimoto Mahoko ^?), is a contemporary Japanese novelist.

Biography

She is the daughter of Takaaki Yoshimoto (also known as Ryumei Yoshimoto, a renowned and influential philosopher in the 1960s). In addition to her famous father, Banana's sister & # 34; Nashe & # 34; Yoshimoto, Haruno Yoiko, is a well-known mangaka in Japan.

His love for nature influences his artistic name: he loves the red and fleshy flowers of the banana tree, from which he derived the pseudonym by which he is known around the world: Banana.

His debut novel, Kitchen (1988), achieved immediate success upon publication, earning it more than sixty editions in Japan alone.

There are two films based on the play, one of them a Japanese television film and the film version produced in Hong Kong in 1997, which had greater commercialization. This novel was written while he was still studying at Nihon University, and with it he won the Newcomer Writers Prize in 1987, and the Izumi Kyoka in 1989.

His work is also made up of the novels N.P. (1992), Sueño Profundo (1994), Tsugumi (1994), Lucertola (1995), Amrita (1997), Sly (1998), Hachiko's Last Lover (1999), Honeymoon (2000), H.H. (2001), The Little Shadow (2002), Sad Omen (2003), The lake (2011), Memories of a Dead End Alley (2011). In addition to novels, Banana Yoshimoto has written several collections of essays, including Songs From Banana Note (1991) and Yume ni tsuite (1994).

Critics think that many of his works are commercial and superficial. On the contrary, the very many fans of his say that he perfectly captures the meaning of the frustrating lives of today's Japanese youth. His novels can be superficial and even funny at times, but they are always impregnated with many values of Japanese ideology.