Mariko Koike

Mariko Koike (1952)  graduated from the Department of Literature at Tokyos Seikei University, then worked as an editor at a publishing firm before quitting to become a freelance writer. In 1978 her essay collection Chiteki akujo no susume (On Being an Intellectual Woman of the World) was a huge bestseller, and overnight she became a darling of the mass media. She subsequently turned to fiction, making her debut as a novelist in 1985. She won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Short Stories in 1989 for her collection Tsuma no onna tomodachi (My Wifes Girlfriends). Though she initially established herself as a master of horror and suspense, her writing style underwent a transformation during the nineties as she began producing love stories influenced by the work of Yukio Mishima, including Mubans (tr. A Cappella), Koi (Love; winner of the 1995 Naoki Prize), and Yokub (Desire; winner of the 1998 Shimase Award for Love Stories), often referred to as her love trilogy. She was awarded the Shibata Renzabur Award in 2006 for her novel Niji no kanata (Beyond the Rainbow), the MEXT Award for the Arts in 2012 for Ichijiku no mori (Fig Forest), and the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature in 2013 for Chinmoku no hito (The Silent One). Besides having a very deep backlist of top-notch entertainments, she is also known as a master of the short story and has published many collections, including Minazuki no haka (June Grave) and Yoru no nezame (Waking in the Night). She is married to fellow writer Yoshinaga Fujita.