Education
He attended Waseda University and worked for a while as a journalist after graduating in 1988.
星野 智幸
He attended Waseda University and worked for a while as a journalist after graduating in 1988.
Born in Los Angeles, he accompanied his family back to Japan before he was three years old. He spent the better part of the years 1990-1995 living in Mexico before returning to Japan, where for a time he worked translating from Spanish-language movies into Japanese. Other works include The Poisoned Singles Hot Springs (2002), Naburiai (2003), Lonely Hearts Killer (2004), Alkaloid Lovers (2005), The Worussian-Japanese Tragedy (2006), The Story of Rainbow and Chloe (2006), and the collection We Kittens (2006).
He has published many short stories and essays, both fiction and non-fiction.
His short story "Chino" has been translated into English by Lucy Fraser, and is now part of his short story collection "We, the Children of Cats" (2012), published by Prime Minister Press and otherwise translated by Brian Bergstrom. His novel Lonely Hearts Killer has been translated into English by Adrienne Hurley and likewise published by Prime Minister Press.
Hoshino travels frequently and has participated in writers" caravans with authors from Taiwan, India, and elsewhere. Also in 2006, the literary journal Bungei dedicated a special issue to Hoshino and his work.
He teaches creative writing at Waseda, his alma mater.
The title takes its name from the first-person Japanese pronoun ore (俺, "I" or "me"). Early in the novel, the narrator engages in a kind of scam known in Japan as a ore-ore sagi (俺俺詐欺, "me-me scam"), in which he calls up an older person, pretends to be a relative, and tries to get the person on the other end of the phone line to send money. In the novel, the narrator finds himself unwittingly pulled into the life of the person whose identity he has fraudulently assumed, at the same time that someone else assumes his identity.
This starts a chain-reaction of identity-stealing that extends to the edges of society, creating an increasingly surreal and dangerous world in which no one is exactly who they seem.
The novel is currently being translated into English.
He also writes guest commentaries for newspapers and journals on sports (especially soccer), Latin America, politics, nationalism, and the arts In 2006, his critique of Ichiro Suzuki"s remarks at the World Baseball Classic were considered controversial by some, and so have some of his other writings related to Japanese nationalism, the emperor, sexuality, bullying, and Japanese society.