Kono Taeko

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Kōno Taeko (河野多惠子? born 1926) is a Japanese novelist and essayist. Kono Taeko was born April 30th, 1926 (15th year of Taisho) in Osaka to a wholesale goods seller and his wife. She was the fourth child of five, with two older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother. A sickly child, she entered – girls high school (currently -- ) in 1939, where she developed an interest in the literature of Kyoka Izumi , and Junichiro Tanizaki . In 1944 she enrolled at – Women’s University (currently Osaka University) to study economics, though before long she was forced into factory work, sewing uniforms for soldiers, while ceaseless raids overhead brought her constantly on the brink of life and death. Upon graduating in 1947, released from the war’s grasp, Taeko read Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’. So passionately influenced by the book, Taeko promptly decided to become a writer, eventually joining a literary coterie in Tokyo in 1950. In 1952, Taeko moved to Tokyo. She worked for government affiliated organizations until November of 1957, when she contracted tuberculosis. Taeko spent the next eighteen months in constant medical checks, often bed-ridden. In 1960, after presenting her first story, “Uses of a Female Impersonator” 「女形遣い」to the publisher 文学者 (Bungakushya), she could feel the limit of compatibility between writing and office work. She retired from office work in October. In 1962 Toddler Hunting (幼児狩り) was published and awarded the – prize, followed in 1963 by Crabs (蟹), which was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa prize. She was later received the Yomiuri prize for A sudden voice (不意の声), in 1969, as well as the Tanibaki prize in 1980 for A year’s pastrol song (一年の牧歌). Her main themes in ‘Toddler Hunting’: an obsession with young boys, a hatred of girls, tendencies towards masochism, and extreme eroticism can be seen as a central motif in her later works as well. Her most recent works have, however, tended to be more understated, perhaps due to her age, perhaps feeling less of a need to shock and more a want to explain the theme of ‘woman’, which has remained throughout all of her works to this day.

She won a prize for her 1962 story Yōjigari (Toddler-hunting), and the 1963 Akutagawa Prize for Kani (Crab). In 1965 she married the painter Yasushi Ichikawa. In subsequent years she won a number of additional prizes including the 1969 Yomiuri Literary Prize for Fui no Koe (不意の声, A Sudden Voice).

[edit] Prizes

[edit] English translations

  • Toddler-hunting & other stories, trans. Lucy North and Lucy Lower, New York : New Directions, 1996.

[edit] Selected works

  • Toddler-hunting (幼児狩り)
  • Flesh of the Bones (骨の肉)
  • Blood and Shell (血と貝殻)
  • A Sudden Voice (不意の声)
  • Cruel tale of a hunter become prey (みいら採り猟奇譚)
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