Kiyoko Murata

Kiyoko Murata (村田 喜代子, Murata Kiyoko, born 1945) is a Japanese writer. She has won the Akutagawa Prize, the Noma Literary Prize, and the Yomiuri Prize, among other literary prizes. The Government of Japan has awarded her the Medal with Purple Ribbon and Order of the Rising Sun, and she has been appointed to the Japan Art Academy. Her work has been adapted for film by Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Onchi.

Kiyoko Murata
Native name
村田 喜代子
Born1945 (age 74–75)
Yahata, Fukuoka, Japan
OccupationWriter
LanguageJapanese
NationalityJapanese
GenreFiction
Notable works
  • Nabe no naka
  • Kokyō no wagaya
  • Yūjokō
Notable awards

Early life and education

Murata was born in 1945 in Yahata, Fukuoka. After graduating from junior high school she worked a variety of jobs, including delivering newspapers, welding, working as a waitress in a coffee shop, and taking tickets at a movie theater.[1][2] She married her husband, an engineer, in 1967, and began writing while raising her children.[1][3]

Career

In 1976 Murata received her first award for fiction when her story "Suichū no koe" ("Voice under Water"), about a woman attempting to help protect children after the loss of her own child, won the Kyushu Art Festival Literary Prize. After writing for several years and publishing her own private literary periodical, Murata was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize in the first half of 1986 for her story "Netsuai" ("Ardent Love"), a story about two boys engaged in a dangerous motorcycle race. The prize committee expressed concern about its initial publication in a minor journal, and she did not win. Murata was again nominated for the Akutagawa Prize in the second half of 1986 for her story "Meiyū" ("Allied Friends"), but again did not win.[1]

Murata won the Akutagawa Prize on her third nomination. In the first half of 1987 her novella "Nabe no naka" ("In the Pot"), about a grandmother who entertains her visiting grandchildren with stories about their relatives, won the 97th Akutagawa Prize.[1][4] Bungeishunjū then published "Nabe no naka" as the title story of Murata's first short story collection, which also included "Suichū no koe", "Netsuai", and "Meiyū".[2] Akira Kurosawa wrote a screenplay based on "Nabe no naka", which he later filmed and released under the title Rhapsody in August.[5] An English translation of "Nabe no naka", translated by Kyoko Iriye Selden, was published in a 2015 collection of fiction by Japanese women writers.[2]

After winning the Akutagawa Prize, Murata continued publishing novellas and full-length novels, including her 1990 work Shiroi yama (白い山, White Mountain), which won the 29th Women's Literature Prize;[6] the 1994 novel Warabi no kō (蕨野行), which was later adapted into the 2003 Hideo Onchi film Warabi no kō;[7] the story Bōchō (望潮, Fiddler Crabs), which won the 29th Kawabata Yasunari Literature Prize; and the 1998 novel Ryūhi gyotenka (龍秘御天歌), which won a 49th MEXT Arts Award in the literature category.[3]

In 2007 the Government of Japan recognized Murata's cultural contributions by awarding her a Medal with Purple Ribbon.[3] Three years later her short story collection Kokyō no wagaya (故鄉のわが家, My Old Home), a set of stories told as the nightly dreams of a woman who has returned to her hometown to sell her family home, was published by Shinchosha.[8] Kokyō no wagaya won the 63rd Noma Literary Prize.[9]

Murata's 2013 novel Yūjokō (ゆうじょこう), a story about a teenage girl who is sold into prostitution by her parents and then helps organize a prostitute labor strike, won the 65th Yomiuri Prize in the fiction category.[10][11] After winning the Yomiuri Prize, Murata again received national honors for her artistic contributions to Japanese culture, receiving the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, in 2016,[12] followed by a lifetime appointment as one of the 120 stipendiary members of the Japan Art Academy in 2017.[13]

Personal life

Around the time of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Murata was diagnosed with uterine cancer and sought radiation treatment, an experience she later used as the basis of her novel Yakeno made (焼野まで).[14]

Recognition

Film and other adaptations

Bibliography

Selected works in Japanese
  • Nabe no naka (鍋の中), Bungeishunjū, 1987, ISBN 9784163099606
  • Shiroi yama (白い山, White Mountain), Bungeishunjū, 1990, ISBN 9784163118505
  • Warabi no kō (蕨野行), Bungeishunjū, 1994, ISBN 9784163146102
  • Bōchō (望潮, Fiddler Crabs), Bungeishunjū, 1998, ISBN 9784163181806
  • Ryūhi gyotenka (龍秘御天歌), Bungeishunjū, 1998, ISBN 9784163176802
  • Kokyō no wagaya (故鄉のわが家), Shinchosha, 2010, ISBN 9784104041039
  • Yūjokō (ゆうじょこう), Shinchosha, 2013, ISBN 9784104041046
  • Yakeno made (焼野まで), Asahi Shimbun, 2016, ISBN 9784022513588

Works in English
  • "Nabe no naka", trans. Kyoko Iriye Seldon, Japanese Women Writers: Twentieth Century Short Fiction, 2015[2]
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References
  1. Schierbeck, Sachiko; Edelstein, Merlene R. (1994). Japanese Women Novelists in the 20th Century: 104 Biographies, 1900-1993. Museum Tusculanum Press. pp. 313–315. ISBN 9788772892689.
  2. Mizuta Lippit, Noriko; Iriye Seldon, Kyoko (2015). Japanese Women Writers: Twentieth Century Short Fiction. Routledge. pp. 275–276. ISBN 9781317466949.
  3. "Authors: Kiyoko Murata". Books From Japan. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  4. Tanabe, Kunio Francis (October 4, 1987). "What he Japanese Are Reading". Washington Post. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  5. Thomas, Kevin (December 23, 1991). "MOVIE REVIEW: War, Reconciliation in Kurosawa's 'Rhapsody'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  6. "女流文学賞受賞作品一覧" [Women's Literature Prize Winning Works List]. Chuokoron-Shinsha (in Japanese). Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  7. "蕨野行（わらびのこう）". Natalie (in Japanese). Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  8. "My Old Home: Synopsis". Books From Japan. Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  9. "野間三賞の受賞作品がそれぞれ発表、野間文芸新人賞に柴崎友香と円城塔". Cinra.net (in Japanese). November 5, 2010. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  10. 清水, 良典 (June 3, 2013). "ゆうじょこう　村田喜代子著". The Nikkei (in Japanese). Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  11. "読売文学賞に村田喜代子さんら". Sankei Shimbun (in Japanese). February 10, 2014. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  12. "４０２４人　旭日大綬章に小島順彦元三菱商事会長、北島三郎さんには旭日小綬章". Sankei Shimbun (in Japanese). April 29, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  13. "日本芸術院新会員８人　建築家・磯崎新氏ら". Sankei Shimbun (in Japanese). December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  14. "村田喜代子さん新刊「焼野まで」　がん闘病から生命の根源へ迫る". Sankei Shimbun (in Japanese). April 27, 2016. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  15. "歴代文学賞受賞作" [Successive List of Literary Prize Winning Works]. 公益財団法人九州文化協会 (in Japanese). Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  16. "芥川賞受賞者一覧" [List of Akutagawa Prize Winners]. Bungeishunjū (in Japanese). 日本文学振興会. January 1, 2018. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  17. "第25回 川端康成文学賞" [The 25th Kawabata Yasunari Literature Prize]. Shinchosha (in Japanese). Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  18. "芸術選奨歴代受賞者" [Arts Award Prize Winners] (PDF). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  19. "会員詳細: 村田 喜代子" [Member Details: Kiyoko Murata]. The Japan Art Academy (in Japanese). Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  20. "野間賞過去受賞作" [Noma Literary Prize Past Winning Works]. Kodansha (in Japanese). Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  21. "読売文学賞" [Yomiuri Prize for Literature]. Yomiuri Shimbun (in Japanese). Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  22. "谷崎潤一郎賞に村田喜代子さんの「飛族」". 読売新聞. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
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