Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

One of my favourite contemporary Japanese author Miyabe Miyuki (宮部みゆき, 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.

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 ShÅ«gorō Prize in 1993 for Kasha and the Naoki Prize in 1998 for RiyÅ« [The Reason] (理由). A Japanese film adaptation of Riyû, directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, was released in 2004 .

Books by Miyuki Miyabe in available in English translation:

# All She Was Worth

Original title: Kasha, trans. Alfred Birnbaum, Mariner Books, 1999.

This is a rollicking great read which was named Best Novel of the year and Best Mystery for 1992 in Japan.

Recovering from a leg injury, a 43-year-old Tokyo police inspector named Shunsuke Honma realizes how out of touch he has become when a relative asks him to make some private inquiries into the disappearance of his fiancée. While he wasn’t paying attention, it seems that everyone in the country but Honma has been caught up in a consumer feeding frenzy–going into heavy debt and declaring bankruptcy at a snowballing rate.

This engrossing story of the search for happiness through shopping marks the first appearance in English of one of Japan’s leading writers.

Pick up a copy of All She Was Worth from amazon.com.

Crossfire

Translated by Deborah Iwabuchi and Anna Isozaki, Kodansha America, 2006.

Young, pretty Junko Aoki has an extraordinary ability she can start fires through sheer force of will. When she begins using her gift of pyrokinesis to take the law into her own hands and punish violent criminals, her executions attract the attention of two very different groups: the
Guardians, a secretive vigilante organization that tries to recruit her, and the arson squad of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Soon the police are on Junkos trail, most notably Detective Chikako Ishizu, a rationalist who must come to terms with the existence of paranormal forces.

As Junkos crusade against evil escalates and she finds it harder to control her power, we are taken on a breathtaking and brutal journal through the urban landscape of Tokyo. . .a journey that challenges us, along with Chikako, to think about whats right and whats wrong in the name of justice.

Pick up a copy of Crossfire from amazon.com.

Shadow Family

Original title: R.P.G., trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter, Kodansha America, 2006

In Shadow Family, Miyuki Miyabe draws readers into the amorphous world of Internet chat rooms-a world of people from all walks of life attracted by the possibility of being whomever they want to be.

Police investigating the murder of a middle-aged office worker discover e-mail correspondence on the victim’s computer that indicates he had been a regular participant in an Internet chat room, as the “father” in a fantasy “family.” Meanwhile, a female detective is assigned to protect the dead man’s
real-life daughter who complains of being stalked. As the real daughter confronts her father’s alternate life, we are pulled into a psychological drama that pits reality and illusion against each other in astonishing ways.

Pick up a copy of Shadow Family from amazon.com.

The Devil’s Whisper

Kodansha America, 2007

Sixteen-year-old Mamoru Kusaka has recently moved to Tokyo to live with his aunt and uncle after the death of his mother. Just as he is beginning to adjust to his new life, his uncle is involved in a late-night accident while driving his taxicab. A young coed is dead and Uncle Taiko is
charged with manslaughter, even though the circumstances seem suspect.

Struggling to help his uncle, Mamoru discovers that the victim had been involved in a cruel scam with three other young women. Two of the four have also recently died in similarly violent incidents.

Several days after the accident, a powerful businessman comes forward as a witness. But instead of making things clearer, the mans testimony only adds more confusing lies and deceptions to an already puzzling case, as Mamoru races to save the last of the four women targeted by the real killer.

Pick up a copy of The Devil’s Whisper from amazon.com.

# Brave Story

Translated by Alexander O. Smith, VIZ Fiction, 824 pg, 2007.
Publishers Description:

Young Wataru Mitani’s life is a mess. His father has abandoned him and his mother has been hospitalized after a suicide attempt. Desperately he searches for some way to change his life—a way to alter his fate.

To achieve his goal, he must navigate the magical world of Vision, a land filled with creatures both fierce and friendly. And to complicate matters, he must outwit a merciless rival from the real world.

Wataru’s ultimate destination is the Tower of Destiny where a goddess of fate awaits. Only when he has finished his journey and collected five elusive gemstones will he possess the Demon’s Bane—the key that will unlock his future.

Charity, bravery, faith, grace and the power of darkness and light: these are the provinces of each gemstone. Brought together, they have the immeasurable power to bring Wataru’s family back together again.

Pick up a copy of Brave Story from amazon.com.

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(Text based in part on the wikipedia entry for Miyuki Miyabe. Used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.)