MIYAMOTO TERU

Miyamoto Teru, given name Masahito, is an author from Kobe. He graduated from Otemon Gakuin University and worked as a copywriter for Sankei Advertising Agency. However, he had a nervous breakdown in his mid-20s from the rigor of the salaryman lifestyle and, having read an engaging short story at a bookstore one evening, he decided to become a writer. He won the Dazai Osamu Prize for Doro no kawa (Muddy River, 1977) and the Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize for Hotarugawa (1978, tr. River of Fireflies, 1991). He was also awarded the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature for the novel Yu-Shun (The Prize Horse, 1987). All three of these prize-winning stories were subsequently made into films.