Minae MIZUMURA

Minae MIZUMURA (b. 1951, Tokyo) moved to the US when she was twelve, studied French literature at Yale but later returned to Japan to dedicate herself to fiction writing. She is now a prominent member of Japan's literary establishment. All her novels pay homage to Japanese literary tradition while breaking new ground. Zoku Meian (Light and Darkness Continued, 1990) finished the unfinished final novel of Natsume Soseki, a figure revered as the greatest modern novelist in Japan . Shishosetsu from Left to Right (An I-Novel from Left to Right, 1995) made use of a bilingual text and horizontal print to question the notion of a Japanese national literature. Her most recent novel, Honkaku Shosetsu (An Orthodox Novel, 2002), is a retelling of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights in postwar Japan , featuring Heathcliff born to a Japanese woman raped by a Chinese bandit. Her novels have received critical acclaim and awards including the distinguished Yomiuri Literature Award. She has taught at Princeton, the University of Michigan and Stanford. She is participating courtesy of the Freeman Foundation.