Background
Yūko Tsushima was born on March 30, 1947 in Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan. She was the daughter of a famed novelist Osamu Dazai, who committed suicide when she was one year old, and a middle school teacher named Michiko Ishihara.
1 Chome-25-25 Midorigaoka, Chofu, Tokyo 182-0001, Japan
Yūko Tsushima attended Shirayuri Women's University (official name: Shirayuri College) and received her Bachelor of Arts in 1968.
(Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and...)
Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time. It won the inaugural Noma Literary Prize.
https://www.amazon.com/Territory-Light-Novel-Yuko-Tsushima/dp/0374273219/?tag=2022091-20
1979
(Pregnant and unmarried, Takiko, who lives at home with he...)
Pregnant and unmarried, Takiko, who lives at home with her violent, alcoholic father and her hard-working mother, discovers the true meaning of love, growing up, and maturity after she bears a son.
https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Running-Mountains-Yuko-Tsushima/dp/0394582381/?tag=2022091-20
1980
(The eight powerful stories of The Shooting Gallery examin...)
The eight powerful stories of The Shooting Gallery examine the lives of single women coping with motherhood, passion, jealousy, and the tug-of-war between responsibility and entrapment. An unwed mother arranges for her children to meet their father, who is a stranger to them. A woman confronts the “other woman” in her lover’s life. A young single mother on an outing to the seaside comes face to face with how much she resents her own children. Another woman tries desperately to hold on to a private life despite her controlling male relatives.
https://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Gallery-New-Directions-Classic/dp/0811213560/?tag=2022091-20
津島 佑子
educator essayist literary critic writer
Yūko Tsushima was born on March 30, 1947 in Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan. She was the daughter of a famed novelist Osamu Dazai, who committed suicide when she was one year old, and a middle school teacher named Michiko Ishihara.
Yūko Tsushima attended Shirayuri Women's University (official name: Shirayuri College) and received her Bachelor of Arts in 1968. She then earned her Master of Arts in 1969.
Yūko Tsushima burst onto the literary scene in 1967 with her first short story "A Birth", while still a university student. At age 24 she published her first collection of stories "Carnival" ("Shaniku-sai").
Initially, Tsushima garnered media attention as the daughter of famed writer Osamu Dazai, but she quickly forged her own independent literary identity.
She was represented in the English language with a selection of short stories collected in "The Shooting Gallery" in 1988 and with the novel, "Child of Fortune", both translated by Geraldine Harcourt.
In addition, Tsushima worked as a lecturer in Japanese literature at the Institute of Occidental Languages, University of Paris, during 1991-1992.
Throughout her career, Tsushima wrote over 35 novels and countless short stories and essays. She was lauded both at home and in the West as a feminist writer for her works.
(Pregnant and unmarried, Takiko, who lives at home with he...)
1980(The eight powerful stories of The Shooting Gallery examin...)
(Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and...)
1979Tsushima's work is often characterized as feminist, though she did not apply this label to her own work. Her writing explores the lives of marginalized people, usually women, who struggle for control of their own lives against societal and family pressures. She has cited Tennessee Williams as a literary influence. Unlike many of her contemporaries, whose writing about women tended to assume a nuclear family, Tsushima wrote about women who had been abandoned by family members. Her stories, several of which draw on her own experience as a single mother, focus on the psychological impact of abandonment on those left behind.
Yūko Tsushima was a member of Japan Writer's Association and Literature Women's Association.
Yūko Tsushima married in 1970 but divorced in 1976. She had two children, the daughter Nen Ishihara and a son.