Miyuki Miyabe

Miyuki Miyabe (宮部みゆき Miyabe Miyuki, born December 23, 1960) is a popular contemporary Japanese author active in a number of genres including science fiction, mystery fiction, historical fiction, social commentary, and juvenile fiction. Her most famous novel in the English-speaking world is Kasha (火車), translated by Alfred Birnbaum as All She Was Worth and published in 1999. Amongst anime fans, her fantasy novel Brave Story is the most famous, as it has notably been adapted into an animated film, an "alternate retelling" manga series, and a series of video games.

Biography
Miyabe was born in the Kōtō ward of Tokyo, Japan and graduated from Sumidagawa High School. She started writing novels at the age of 23. In 1984, while working at a law office, Miyabe began to take writing classes at a writing school run by the Kodansha publishing company. Her debut work is considered to be her 1987 short story "Warera ga rinjin no hanzai" (我らが隣人の犯罪). She has been a prolific writer, publishing dozens of novels and winning many major literary prizes, including the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize in 1993 for Kasha and the Naoki Prize in 1998 for Riyū [The Reason] (理由). A Japanese film adaptation of Riyû, directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, was released in 2004 (reviewed by Mark Schilling in The Japan Times (5 January 2005)).

Works in English translation

 * All She Was Worth (original title: Kasha), trans. Alfred Birnbaum (Mariner Books, 1999)
 * Crossfire, trans. Deborah Iwabuchi and Anna Isozaki (Kodansha America, 2006)
 * Shadow Family (original title: R.P.G.), trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter (Kodansha America, 2006)
 * Brave Story, trans. Alexander O. Smith (VIZ Fiction, 2007)
 * The Devil's Whisper (original title: Majutsu wa sasayaku), trans. Deborah Iwabuchi (Kodansha America, 2007)
 * The Book of Heroes (original title: Eiyu no sho), trans. Alexander O. Smith (Haikasoru, 2010)

Criticism

 * Amanda C. Seaman, Bodies of Evidence: Women, Society, and Detective Fiction in 1990s Japan (University of Hawai'i Press, 2004), 26–56 (on All She Was Worth)
 * Idem, "There goes the neighbourhood: community and family in Miyabe Miyuki's Riyû," Japan Forum 16/2 (2004): 271–87

Miyuki Miyabe Miyuki Miyabe 宮部みゆき 미야베 미유키 宫部美幸