Bubbles
Translating Yoshimoto Banana and the Shōjo Girl Yoshimoto Banana (b. 1964) by now is one of the most well-known Japanese writers in the English reading world, and enormously famous in Japan. In particular, she is popular among young women, who perhaps identify with Yoshimoto’s female protagonists. Her most popular works were published during the “Bubble” economy, including Bubbles . Her translations introduced a new side of Japan to English readers that had nothing to do with the “orient,” no traces of the masculine texts that had been published in the postwar period by celebrated writers Mishima Yukio, Ōe Kenzaburō , or Kawabata Yasunari. From another perspective, Yoshimoto’s work lies outside the realm of so-called “pure” literature ( jun bungaku ) and has been categorized as “popular” literature ( taishû bungaku ). She is an icon of girls’ literature, or shōjo bungaku , a rich, cross-media genre in Ja...