Wiki: Miyuki Miyabe - upcScavenger

born December 23, 1960 is a Japanese writer of genre fiction. She has won numerous Japanese literary awards, including the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature, the Shiba Ryotaro Prize, the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, and the Naoki Prize. Her work has been widely adapted for film, television, manga, and video games, and has been translated into over a dozen languages.

Early life and education

Miyabe was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1960. Her mother was a seamstress and her father was an assembly line worker at a factory. She graduated from Sumida River High School, then attended a business training school before taking an administrative job at a law office.

Career

Miyabe started writing novels at the age of 23. In 1984, while working at a law office, Miyabe began to take writing classes at a writing school run by the Kodansha publishing company. She made her literary debut in 1987 with 'Our Neighbour is a Criminal' "Warera ga rinjin no hanzai" (我らが隣人の犯罪), which won the 26th All Yomimono Mystery Novel Newcomer Prize and the Japan Mystery Writers Association Prize. She has since written dozens of novels and won numerous literary prizes.

Miyabe's novel Kasha, set at the beginning of Japan's lost decade and telling the story of a Tokyo police inspector's search for a missing woman who might be an identity thief trying to get clear of debt, was published by Futabasha in 1992. The next year Kasha won the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, which is awarded for a new literary work that excels at storytelling in any genre. Kasha was adapted into a television movie by TV Asahi in 1994, then again in 2011. The Japanese version of the book sold millions of copies. An English translation of Kasha, translated by Alfred Birnbaum, was published by Kodansha International under the title All She Was Worth in 1997. Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times positively noted the relationship between the "spare style and measured pace" of Birnbaum's translation and the "somber tone of Miyuki's theme" of individual value in a consumerist economy, while Cameron Barr of The Christian Science Monitor wrote that the book's treatment of privacy and data tracking would leave the impression that "personal privacy is a rickety antique."

Riyū, a multiple perspective murder mystery set in Tokyo's Arakawa ward and written in the form of research interviews conducted in mostly polite language with the suspect, neighbors, and family members of the victims, was published in book form in 1998.

Mutsuko Endo Hudson (2026). 9789027289667, John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 9789027289667

Riyū won the 17th Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize in the Japanese novel category that same year. In 1999 Riyū won the 120th Naoki Prize. Scholar Noriko Chino has described Riyū as "one of the masterpieces of postwar fictional social criticism." Riyū was adapted into a Nobuhiko Obayashi movie that was first shown on the Wowow television channel before its 2004 theatrical release.

Miyabe's novel Kurosufaia, about a police detective pursuing a girl with pyrokinetic powers, was published in the same year as Riyū. It was adapted into the 2000 Toho film Pyrokinesis, starring Akiko Yada and Masami Nagasawa.

Stuart Galbraith IV (2026). 9781461673743, Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9781461673743

An English version of Crossfire, translated by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki, was published in 2006, with Kirkus Reviews calling it "the most conventional of her three novels translated into English". In 2003 Kadokawa Shoten published Miyabe's fantasy novel Brave Story, a story about a boy with a troubled home life who finds a portal to another world. Brave Story became a bestseller in Japan, and has since been adapted into an anime film, a manga series, and a series of video games. The English version of the novel, translated by Alexander O. Smith, won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award in 2008.

Writing style

Miyabe has written novels in several different genres, including science fiction, mystery fiction, historical novel, social commentary, and young adult literature. Outside of Japan she is better known for her crime and fantasy novels. English translations of her work include Crossfire (クロスファイア), published in 1998, and Kasha (火車), translated by Alfred Birnbaum as All She Was Worth, published in 1999. Literary scholar Amanda Seaman called Kasha "a watershed moment in the history of women's detective fiction" that inspired "a new wave of women mystery writers."

Amanda C. Seaman (2026). 9780824828066, University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 9780824828066

A common theme in Miyabe's work is community, particularly the effects of consumerism in Japanese society on family and community relationships.

Awards

+Awards won by Miyuki Miyabe !Year !Award !Category !Work
1992	45th Mystery Writers of Japan Award	Best Novel	The Sleeping Dragon
1992	13th Eiji Yoshikawa Prize for New Writers		Honjo Fukagawa Fushigi-zōshi
1993	6th Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize		All She Was Worth
1997	18th Japan SF Award		Gamōtei Jiken
1998	17th Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize		Riyū ( The Reason)
1999	120th Naoki Prize (1998下)		Riyū ( The Reason)
2001	5th Shiba Ryotaro Prize		Puppet Master
2007	41st Eiji Yoshikawa Prize for Literature		Books from Japan
2008	Batchelder Award	Best Translated Children's Book	Brave Story

Bibliography

Books in Japanese

, Tokyo Sogensha, 1989,
, Shinchosha, 1989,
, Bungeishunjū, 1990,
, Kobunsha, 1990,
, Shinchosha, 1990,
, Shuppan Geijutsusha, 1991,
, Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha, 1991,
, Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha, 1991,
, Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha, 1992,
, Chuo Koronsha, 1992,
, 1992,
, Futabasha, 1992,
, Kobunsha, 1992,
, Bungeishunjū, 1992,
, Kodansha, 1993,
, Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha, 1993,
, Shinchosha, 1993,
, Shueisha, 1994,
, Shinchosha, 1994,
, Chuo Koronsha, 1995,
, PHP Kenkyūjo, 1995,
, Kobunsha, 1995,
, Bungeishunjū, 1996,
, Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1996,
, Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha, 1996,
, Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha, 1997,
, Tōkyō Sōgensha, 1997,
, Asahi Shinbunsha, 1998,
, Kobunsha, 1998,
, Kodansha, 2000,
, Kadokawa Shoten, 2000, 　
, Shogakkan, 2001,
, Shueisha, 2001,
volumes 1-4, Tokuma Shoten, 2001–07, (vol. 1)
, PHP Kenkyūjo, 2002,
, Kadokawa Shoten, 2003,
, Bungeishunjū, 2003,
, Kodansha, 2004,
, Kodansha, 2005, (vol. 1) (vol. 2)
, Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha, 2005, (vol. 1) (vol. 2)
, Gentōsha, 2006,
, Bungeishunjū, 2007, (vol. 1) (vol. 2)
, Kadokawa Shoten, 2008,
, Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2009, (vol. 1) (vol. 2)
, Kodansha, 2010,

Selected works in English

Crime/thriller novels

All She Was Worth (original title: Kasha), trans. Alfred Birnbaum, Kodansha International, 1996,
Crossfire, trans. Deborah Iwabuchi and Anna Isozaki, Kodansha International, 2005,
Shadow Family (original title: R.P.G.), trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter, Kodansha International, 2005,
The Devil's Whisper (original title: Majutsu wa sasayaku), trans. Deborah Iwabuchi, Kodansha International, 2007,
The Sleeping Dragon (original title: Ryū wa nemuru), trans. Deborah Iwabuchi, Kodansha International, 2009,
Puppet Master (original title: Mohōhan), trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori, Creek & River Co., 2014–2016, released only in five ebook volumes

Fantasy novels

Brave Story, trans. Alexander O. Smith, VIZ Media, 2007,
(original title: Eiyu no sho), trans. Alexander O. Smith, VIZ Media, 2009,
Ico: Castle in the Mist, trans. Alexander O. Smith, VIZ Media, 2011,
The Gate of Sorrows, trans. Jim Hubbert, VIZ Media, 2016,

Short stories

"The Futon Room" (original title: "Futon-beya"), trans. Stephen A. Carter, Kaiki: Uncanny Tales from Japan, Volume 1: Tales of Old Edo, 2009
Miyuki Miyabe (2026). 9784902075083, Kurodahan Press. ISBN 9784902075083
Apparitions: Ghosts of Old Edo, trans. Daniel Huddleston, VIZ Media, 2013,