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After School Keynotes
Japanese
183 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Amy Yamada
102 books49 followersAmy Yamada (AKA 山田 詠美, Yamada Eimi) born February 8, 1959, is a popular but controversial contemporary Japanese writer who is most famous for her stories that address issues of sexuality, racism, and interracial marriage, topics not typically discussed openly in Japanese society.
Born in Tokyo as Futaba Yamada, she lived in several places around Japan due to her father's job. This transient lifestyle forced her to confront issues of separation and bullying, issues that many of her protagonists also deal with.
According to her interview with the Japanese magazine Bungei, during middle school she was moved by African-American soul music and began to read any novels she could find written by black people, or featuring black people. She held a job in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, an area rich with foreigners.
After graduating from high school in 1977, she entered Meiji University's Literature Department, but dropped out before graduating. After a short stint writing and drawing manga, she began writing novels in 1980. Though her works garnered some attention, even receiving praise from Japanese literary critic Jun Eto (江藤淳 Eto Jun?), she only achieved widespread recognition in 1985, when Bedtime Eyes won the Bungei Prize. In writing Bedtime Eyes, Yamada drew upon her experiences with black people and black culture and combined them with the Japanese literary tradition.
In 1996, "Trash" was published in English translation by Kodansha International (translator: Sonya L. Johnson). In May 2006, three of Yamada's novellas (Bedtime Eyes 「ベッドタイム･アイズ」, The Piano Player's Fingers 「指の戯れ」 and Jesse 「ジェシーの背骨」) were published in English translation (translators: Yumi Gunji and Marc Jardine) as a single volume by St Martin's Press under the collective title Bedtime Eyes.
In Yamada's second collection of works, Jesse's Spine, Yamada depicts the experiences of a woman who is learning to adjust to life with her lover's child from another relationship. The writing style of this work has been compared to William Saroyan's novel, Papa You're Crazy. Through her depiction of the child's perspective on the world, her book was a critical success, earning her a nomination for the Akutagawa Prize for new authors. In her short novels Classroom for the Abandoned Dead, Afterschool Music, and I Can't Study, Yamada tackles the topics of childhood life, bullying, and school life. In an interview with Bungei Shunjū upon winning the Akutagawa Prize, Risa Wataya and Hitomi Kanehara named Yamada's Afterschool Music as one of their major influences, explaining that her works were one of the greatest depictions of modern Japan.
Born in Tokyo as Futaba Yamada, she lived in several places around Japan due to her father's job. This transient lifestyle forced her to confront issues of separation and bullying, issues that many of her protagonists also deal with.
According to her interview with the Japanese magazine Bungei, during middle school she was moved by African-American soul music and began to read any novels she could find written by black people, or featuring black people. She held a job in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, an area rich with foreigners.
After graduating from high school in 1977, she entered Meiji University's Literature Department, but dropped out before graduating. After a short stint writing and drawing manga, she began writing novels in 1980. Though her works garnered some attention, even receiving praise from Japanese literary critic Jun Eto (江藤淳 Eto Jun?), she only achieved widespread recognition in 1985, when Bedtime Eyes won the Bungei Prize. In writing Bedtime Eyes, Yamada drew upon her experiences with black people and black culture and combined them with the Japanese literary tradition.
In 1996, "Trash" was published in English translation by Kodansha International (translator: Sonya L. Johnson). In May 2006, three of Yamada's novellas (Bedtime Eyes 「ベッドタイム･アイズ」, The Piano Player's Fingers 「指の戯れ」 and Jesse 「ジェシーの背骨」) were published in English translation (translators: Yumi Gunji and Marc Jardine) as a single volume by St Martin's Press under the collective title Bedtime Eyes.
In Yamada's second collection of works, Jesse's Spine, Yamada depicts the experiences of a woman who is learning to adjust to life with her lover's child from another relationship. The writing style of this work has been compared to William Saroyan's novel, Papa You're Crazy. Through her depiction of the child's perspective on the world, her book was a critical success, earning her a nomination for the Akutagawa Prize for new authors. In her short novels Classroom for the Abandoned Dead, Afterschool Music, and I Can't Study, Yamada tackles the topics of childhood life, bullying, and school life. In an interview with Bungei Shunjū upon winning the Akutagawa Prize, Risa Wataya and Hitomi Kanehara named Yamada's Afterschool Music as one of their major influences, explaining that her works were one of the greatest depictions of modern Japan.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 21, 2021
The type of book that makes u sigh happily after u read it ::0) full of that feeling of puppy love and many sweet descriptions that transport u back to simpler times
March 23, 2023
This was very cute :D Though I couldn’t really fully appreciate it since every story is based on very heteronormative love and also I am not in high school anymore. I wish I read this when I was. I really did appreciate just the sheer feminine energy and expression of all the girls
September 22, 2016
Another Japanese author that I think deserves to be translated. In my opinion, she does best at short stories, so this collection would be a good candidate.
Yamada is a controversial writer, partly because of her background -- she worked in the sex industry as a dom queen while attending college and dating with US service men in Yokosuka base (with strong preference for black men) -- and partly because she frankly reflected her experience in many of her writing. (She also wrote many books that are more mainstream, including this one.)
I have no comment about her biography, but the thing is, she wrote well -- I'd say, until the mid or late 1990s.
This is an omnibus of what we now call YA short stories, with a female high school student as the protagonist. They are unbelievably beautiful and capture the ethereal feeling of love so well.
Yamada is a controversial writer, partly because of her background -- she worked in the sex industry as a dom queen while attending college and dating with US service men in Yokosuka base (with strong preference for black men) -- and partly because she frankly reflected her experience in many of her writing. (She also wrote many books that are more mainstream, including this one.)
I have no comment about her biography, but the thing is, she wrote well -- I'd say, until the mid or late 1990s.
This is an omnibus of what we now call YA short stories, with a female high school student as the protagonist. They are unbelievably beautiful and capture the ethereal feeling of love so well.
June 25, 2019
Such a short n sweet n lovely selection of stories ... Vivid descriptions of a sugary sweet high school life w mainly unknowing n naive gorls trynna navigate their/their friends' budding romances *swoon*
Every story made my heart ache in a different place every time. My fav stories were red zone and keynote
Also love to amy yamada for discussing teen pregnancy, promiscuity/sex and bullying !!!!!!
I also love the range of female protags in all of these. They're unapologetically female n sensitive n all mature and graceful as fuck. They stand for what is right and avoid pettiness n gossip. I loved all of them!!!!!!!!!
Every story made my heart ache in a different place every time. My fav stories were red zone and keynote
Also love to amy yamada for discussing teen pregnancy, promiscuity/sex and bullying !!!!!!
I also love the range of female protags in all of these. They're unapologetically female n sensitive n all mature and graceful as fuck. They stand for what is right and avoid pettiness n gossip. I loved all of them!!!!!!!!!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews