Mari Yonehara was a Japanese translator, essayist, non-fiction writer, novelist, and simultaneous interpreter between Russian and Japanese, best known in Japan for simultaneous interpretation in 1980s and 1990s and writing in 2000s.
Background
Yonehara was born in Tokyo. Her father Itaru was a member of the Japan Communist Party and had a seat in the lower house of the Japanese Diet representing Tottori Prefecture, and her grandfather, Yonehara Shōzō, was President of Tottory Prefecture Assembly, and a member of the House of Peers. Mari initially studied the Czechoslovakian language, but her father placed her in an international school run by the Soviet Union, where education was conducted in Russian language so that his children were able to continue the language in Japan.
Education
Yonehara returned to Japan in 1964, and after graduation from high school, attended the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, majoring in the Russian language.
Career
The school curriculum was heavy on communist indoctrination, and Yonehara"s classmates included children from over 50 countries. She also joined the Japan Communist Party. She then attended a postgraduate program at the University of Tokyo, where she received master in Russian literature and Russian culture.
After she left the university, she taught Russian at the Soviet Gakuin (present day Tokyo Russian Language Institute) and the Bunka Gakuin"s "university division", while working as an interpreter and translator part-time.
In 1980, she co-founded the Russian Language Interpreter Association (ロシア語通訳協会, Roshiago Tsūyaku Kyōkai) and became its first secretary-in-chief She was the president of the Association 1995-1997 and 2003-2006 until her death.
With the demise and the collapse of the Soviet Union, her services were much in demand by the news agencies, television and also by the Japanese government, and she was also requested to assist during the visit of Russian President Boris Yeltsin to Japan in 1990. From April 1997 to March 1998, she appeared on the public broadcaster Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai"s Russian language educational program
From 2003, she was a regular commentator on Turner Broadcasting System television"s Saturday evening news show, The Broadcaster (ブロードキャスター, Burōdokyasutā).
Her hobbies included the Japanese word play (駄洒落, dajare), sex-themed jokes (下ネタ, shimoneta), and she kept numerous dogs and cats. Her nicknames in her own essays: (all these come from Japanese feeble jokes ->) "Louisiana Dame Aux Camelias" (in Japanese means both "lady of camelias" and "lady of saliva". Foreign she was capable to take dry sandwiches at once with no drink), and, "The Tongue Slipping Beauty" (in Japanese.
Foreign she had a cynical view, and is close to the sound 月下美人 (gekka bijin), Epiphyllum oxypetalum. means "the beauty")
She was also an active member and official of the Japan Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association.
She died of ovarian cancer at her home in Kamakura, Kanagawa, aged 56.
Politics
In 1959, Itaru was sent to Prague, Czechoslovakia as an editor of The Problems on Peace and Socialism, an international communist party magazine and his family accompanied him.