TSUSHIMA YUKO

(1947–)

Tsushima Yuko, given name Satoko, is a novelist and essayist and the daughter of Dazai Osamu. She studied English literature at Shirayuri Women’s University, began her literary career there as a student, and published her first collection of stories at 24. She was an Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize finalist in 1972, and in 1979 was awarded the first annual Noma Prize. She published Hi no kawa no hotori de (By the River of Fire, 1983) and won the Kawabata Yasunari Prize in 1983 for a different work, Damari ichi (1983; tr. The Silent Traders, 1984). She has also won the Women’s Literature Prize, the Yomiuri Prize, and the Tanizaki Jun’ichiro Prize. Her works have been translated widely abroad.