Mayumi Inaba

Mayumi Inaba
Native name	稲葉 真弓
Born	Mayumi Hirano 平野 眞弓 (1950-03-08)8 March 1950 Saya, Ama, Aichi, Occupied Japan
Died	30 August 2014(2014-08-30) (aged 64) Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan
Pen name	Yumi Kurata ( 倉田 ゆみ ) Yuko Kurata ( 倉田 悠子 )
Occupation	Novelist, poet, university professor
Period	1973 – 2014
Notable awards	Taiko-Hirabayashi Prize (1995) Kawabata Prize (2008) Tanizaki Prize (2011) Shinran Prize (2012) Medal of Honor, Purple ribbon (2014)

Mayumi Inaba (稲葉 真弓, Inaba Mayumi; 8 March 1950 – 30 August 2014) was a Japanese writer and poet. She won the Tanizaki Prize in 2011 for her memoir To the Peninsula (半島へ). Her short story Asa ga nido kuru (朝が二度くる, Morning Comes Twice a Day) was translated into English by Lawrence Rogers for the collection Tokyo Stories: A Literary Stroll.

Biography

Inaba was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1950. Her writing career began when she was 16 and won a poetry competition sponsored by the magazine Bungei Shunjū. She soon began writing fiction and won the Prize for Young Female Authors in 1973 for her short story Aoi kage no itami wo (青い影の痛みを, The Pain of Blue Shadows). She was also awarded the Hirabayashi Taiko Prize for short story Koe no Shoufu (声の娼婦, The Voice Prostitute). Inaba's short story Miru (海松), named after a type of seaweed commonly known as dead man's fingers, won the 2007 Yasunari Kawabata Prize for best short story.

She died of pancreatic cancer at age 64.