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Translators' Introduction
Kurahashi Yumiko (1935-2005) was, for more than four decades, one of Japan's most innovative and original writers. Acclaimed for her political satire, experimental novels, and fantastic short stories, Kurahashi was also the author of two collections of fairy tales. Born in Tosay amada, Köchi prefecture, in Shikoku, Kurahashi had initially intended to pursue a career in dentistry; however, in 1957 she entered Meiji University, Tokyo, where she studied French literature. Kurahashi first gained critical attention in 1960 when her short story "Parutai" (from the German Partei [party]) won the Meiji University President's Prize.) "Partutai," which was also nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, was only the second story that Kurahashi had written, and it is clearly influenced by French existentialism; she herself described it as being an "imitation of Sartre."1 Although the story's satirical portrayal of the Communist Party attracted a great deal of attention, not all of it was favorable; indeed, it was as controversial as it was successful, but the controversy surrounding this and other early short stories was merely a prelude to the negative criticism of Kurahashi's work that would persist even as she established herself as one of the leading intellectual writers of her generation. The best known of Kurahashi's early antirealist novels include Kurai tabi (Blue Journey, 1961) and Sei shojo (Divine Maiden, 1965). In 1966 Kurahashi was invited to spend twelve months in the United States as a Fulbright scholar in the creative writing program at the University of Iowa. On returning to Japan she had further successes with Sumiyakisuto Q no boken (The Adventures of Sumiyakist Q, 1969), Bajinia (Virginia, 1970) and Yume no ukihashi (The Floating Bridge of Dreams, 1971), the latter of which reworks the final chapter of Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji). In 1972 Kurahashi moved to Portugalwithherhusband and their two children; they stayed for two years but returned to Japan in 1974 because of the political unrest. Kurahashi published a collection of grotesque tales in 1 985,2 and in the following year published what is arguably the best known of her later experimental novels: Amanonkoku ökanki (Record of a Journey to Amanon Country). Her last completed work, Hoshi no öjisama, was a translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le petit prince, which...