is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese author and professor of literature at Keio University

Keio University

,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

.

Early Years

Ogino was born as Anna Gaillard in Naka-ku

Naka-ku, Yokohama

is one of the 18 wards of the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the ward had an estimated population of 146,563and a density of 7,080 persons per km². The total area was 20.86 km².-Geography:...

, Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

, Kanagawa Prefecture

Kanagawa Prefecture

is a prefecture located in the southern Kantō region of Japan. The capital is Yokohama. Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area.-History:The prefecture has some archaeological sites going back to the Jōmon period...

, to a Japanese mother and father of European-American ancestry. She was naturalized during elementary school, and received her undergraduate and master's degree in French literature from Keio University

Keio University

,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

, as well as receiving a scholarship to Paris-Sorbonne University to study Rabelais. In 2002 she became a professor at Keio.

Career

Ogino began writing in 1983 as text author for comic strips about mermaids. A notable work, Watakushi no aidokusho (My love-hate affair with books) is a critical novel that compares eminent male Japanese authors to different types of foods. She has received the 1991 Akutagawa Prize

Akutagawa Prize

The is a Japanese literary award presented semi-annually. It was established in 1935 by Kan Kikuchi, then-editor of Bungeishunjū magazine, in memory of author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa...

 for Seoi mizu (Water Burden) and the 2001 Yomiuri Prize

Yomiuri Prize

The is a prestigious literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1948 by the Yomiuri Shinbun Company to help form a "cultural nation". The winner is awarded one million Japanese yen and an inkstone.-Award categories:...

for Horafuki-Anri no bōken.

Sources

• Keio University: Anna Ogino
• Photograph
• Sachiko Shibata Schierbeck and Marlene R. Edelstein, Japanese women novelists in the 20th century: 104 biographies, 1900-1993, Museum Tusculanum Press, 1994, pages 330-331. ISBN 9788772892689.
• Tomoko Aoyama, "The Love that poisons: Japanese parody and the new literacy", Japan Forum, Volume 6, Issue 1, 1994, pp. 35-46.
• Reiko Abe Auestad, "Ogino Anna and parodic language", Japan Forum, Volume 10, Issue 1, 1998, pages 31-45.
• Midori McKeon, "Ogino Anna's Gargantuan Play in Tales of Peaches, Rebecca L. Copeland and Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen eds, The Father-Daughter Plot: Japanese Literary Women and the Law of the Father, University of Hawaii Press, 2001, pp.327-367.
• Japanese Wikipedia article