Yoshiyuki Junnosuke

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yoshiyuki Junnosuke, 吉行淳之介 (April 1, 1923 - July 26, 1994) was a Japanese novelist and short-story writer.

Yoshiyuki was born in Okayama, the oldest child of author Yoshiyuki Eisuke, but moved to Tokyo at age 3. He attended Shizuoka High School, where he grew interested in Thomas Mann's stories, and in 1945 entered the University of Tokyo. He left the university without a degree, however, and began working fulltime as a magazine editor, while spending much of his leisure time gambling, drinking, and frequenting prostitutes. Sexuality and prostitution would form a consistent theme in his writing.

Yoshiyuki's first published fiction was Bara Hanbainin (薔薇販売人, The Rose Seller, 1950), followed by the novels Genshoku no Machi (The City of Primary Colors, 1951, revised 1956), Shu-u (驟雨, Sudden Shower, 1954), for which he won the Akutagawa Prize, and Shofu no Heya (Room of a Whore, 1958). His novel Anshitsu (暗室, The Dark Room, 1969) won the Tanizaki Prize. Another of his most celebrated works, Yugure Made (夕暮れまで, Until Evening, 1978), took 13 years to write but once published quickly became a best-seller and won the Noma Literary Prize.