Taku Mayumura (眉村 卓Mayumura Taku, 20 October 1934 – 3 November 2019) was a Japanese novelist,science fiction writer[1] andhaiku poet. He won theSeiun Award for Novel twice. His novelShiseikan (司政官,Administrator, one story of the "Shiseikan series"), written in 1974, was translated into English by Daniel Jackson in 2004.[2] Mayumura was also ayoung adult fiction writer whose works have been adapted intoTV drama, film, andanime. Mayumura was an honorary member of the SFWJ (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan).
Mayumura was born asMurakami Takuji (村上 卓児), atOsaka city,Osaka prefecture in 1934.[1] He graduated fromOsaka University in 1957 with a degree in economics,[1] as well as ajudo competition career at theNanatei league. After graduation, he joined a company. While working at this company, he wrote short novels and submitted them to contests in commercial literary magazines.
In 1960, he joined the SFfanzineUchūjin.[1] In 1961, he won the Best Story prize in the 1st Kūsō-Kagaku Shōsetsu Contest (later theHayakawa SF Contest) for hisnovelKakyū Aidea-man (Junior Idea-Man)[1] and made his debut in theS-F Magazine with this work.
In 1965, he retired from the company and started working as an independent writer.[1] Mayumura's first book, the science fiction novelMoeru Keisha (燃える傾斜), was published by Tōto Shobo in the same year.
In 1976, his bookPsychic School Wars was released, and was later adapted into both live action and anime versions.[4]
In 1979, he won the seventhIzumi Kyōka Prize for Literature and theSeiun Award for his novelShōmetsu no Kōrin,[3] which is the representative work in his "Shiseikan series". In 1996, he won his second Seiun Award for another entry in theShiseikan series, the long novelHikishio no Toki.
His storyToraerareta School Bus inspired the 1986 anime filmToki no Tabibito - Time Stranger.[5]
Mayumura was also a well-knownyoung adult fiction writer.[3] His representative works in this field wereNazo no Tenkousei andNerawareta Gakuen etc. These works were adapted intoTV Drama series byNHK, and adapted intoCinema too. Other juvenile fictions by Mayumura were adapted into the animeToki no Tabibito.
In 2002, his wife died of cancer. Mayumura had been writing a very short story every day for his wife, who was in the hospital bedridden since the cancer had been diagnosed. When his stories, which were written each day and numbered, reached to 1778, his wife died.[1] These stories were compiled and published. The filmBoku to Tsuma no 1778 no Monogatari, based on this true story, was released in 2011.[3]
In 2004, he workAdministrator was published in English.[3]
In 2012, an anime film adaptation was being created of his science fiction children's novelNerawareta Gakuen, which is a set in a prep school. At that time, the book had also inspired four live-action TV adaptations, and two live-action films.[6]
In 2020, he was posthumously awarded the Meritorious Service Award in its 40th Nihon SF Taishō Awards by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ).[5]
Mayumura was also a haiku poet. He was a member of the haiku club in his high school. He posted his haiku work to the haiku coterie magazineAshibu (馬酔木) which Shūōshi Mizuhara (JA) presided over. Mayumura has been a coterie membera of the haiku magazine "Uzu" (渦). In 2009, he published a Haiku book "Kiri wo yuku" (霧を行く).
As a literary theorist, he advocated the "Insider Bungaku-ron" (Theory of Literature by Insiders).[7] Consistent with this theme, his novels frequently tackle the issues of problematic relations between individuals and the corporate orbureaucratic organizations to which they belong.
Mayumura wrote various stories. His stages of the fictions range from the ordinary life scenes of common people to the fantastic worlds hidden back in the daily life, to the inter-stellar federation of far future.
Especially, strange and fantastic aspects of the reality, adjacent to the ordinary life are the essence of his fantastic stories.[8]
He died early in the morning (at 04:01 AM in JST) of November 3, 2019 due toaspiration pneumonia[9] in Osaka.[10] His family stated he had been dealing with cancer for several years, and had been hospitalized on October 8, continuing to write in his bed until his death.[3]
TheShiseikan (Administrator) series is summarized as follows: In the distant future, the humans of Earth constitute the Terrestrial Federation; the Terrestrial humans have spread far across outer space and colonized numerous planets and solar systems. The Federation established local governments on those planets to establish law and order among the human settlers, and to mediate between Terrestrials and the sapient aliens who had been originally born, evolved and lived on certain of these planets before the settlers arrived. In the early period, the planets had been ruled by Federation-aligned military juntas; however, the Federation has begun to recall the military administrations and send civilian administrators to govern on their behalf. The troubles faced by these administrators constitute the stories ofShiseikan.
^Mayumura considered that literature was traditionally created by, and written from the view point of, artists who stood outside of the common society; in contrast, his literary theory insisted on the necessity of the "insiders", necessity of literature written from the common man's point of view.
