Misa Yamamura


Misa Yamamura, née Kimura, was a Japanese novelist and a mystery writer favored as the queen of both mystery novels and tricks in Japan, often compared to Agatha Christie.

Biography

Born in Kyoto, Misa Yamamura graduated from Kyoto Prefectural University Faculty of Letters, majored Japanese Literature in 1957 and was employed as a Japanese literature teacher at Fushimi Junior High School in Kyoto City until 1964 when she got married. Beginning writing since around 1967, Yamamura was nominated three times for in 1970, 1972 and 1973, and it was in 1974 when she made a major debut with "Disappeared into the Sea of Melaka". Yamamura wrote two TV screen plays before her major debut for a very popular series of detective drama "SWAT: Special Investigation Team". Those were written for Episodes 474 and 476, both broadcast in 1970.
Among her seventy-plus novels, many were set in Kyoto, and a good number of those were used as the original works for television dramas since 1970s as well as for several theater plays. She incorporated her background into her novels as she held official instructors' license for Ikenobo flower arrangement and tea ceremony with a Japanese dance Natori, or an instructor allowed to hold a stage name. She appeared in a few TV drama based on her novels cast with Momiji Yamamura.
Her most enduring character was amateur detective Catherine Turner, the Japanophilic daughter of a fictional Vice President of [the United States]. Debuting as a Columbia senior in 1975's Coffin of Flowers, this character ultimately resettled in Japan as a fashion reporter/photographer, appearing in a total of twenty novels and dozens of short stories.
Misa Yamamura introduced herself to mystery writer Kyotaro Nishimura before her debut, and their friendship lasted till her unexpected death in 1996. Momiji, her daughter, has also been appearing in a variety of dramas based on novels by Kyotaro Nishimura as well. Many years after her death, Nishimura published the biographical novel A Woman Writer with a portrait picture of Misa Yamamura. In 2006, he further homaged her with his own Coffin of Flowers; originally serialized in four parts from October 27 to November 17 for weekly magazine Shūkan Asahi, it centered on the legacy of deceased mystery writer Natsuko Emoto, a fictionalization of Yamamura.
On September 5, 1996, she was found dead in the room she had used as her office in Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, due to heart failure at the age of 62 years. Yamamura left a will that her eldest daughter Momiji Yamamura should be given a role whoever a director produces works based on her novels for drama for television or theater.
Momiji Yamamura has been providing the original plans for TV drama and theatrical works that uses her mother's novels, and it includes those episodes of two-hour TV dramas titled "Misa Yamamura, the Novelist Detective" has been broadcast since 2012, with the leading role portrayed as Misa Yamamura the novelist detective. Momiji is co-starred with the main cast Yūko Asano, who plays Misa Yamamura.

Family

Her spouse is Takashi Yamamura, a painter and a retired high school teacher. Her younger brother is Hiroshi Kimura, a professor of Political Science and her daughter is Momiji Yamamura, an actress.

Awards

  • 1983: The Disappeared Heir at the third Nihon Bungei Taishō
  • 1992: the 10th Kyoto Culture Award, Lifetime Achievement Honor and the Kyoto Akebono Award, both as a writer

Long lists

  • 1970: Death at Keijo at the 16th Edogawa Ranpo Award
  • 1971: The Corpse Likes Air Conditioner
  • 1972: Death Crossover at the 18th Edogawa Ranpo Award
  • 1973: Distorted Ocean Trench at the 19th Edogawa Ranpo Award

Serials

  • Katherine: 38 episodes, 1975–1995, with the first episode as
  • Maiko Kogiku in Kyoto: 6 episodes, November 1985 – 1995
  • Akiko Ishihara, an undertaker: 5 episodes, November 1990 – 1996
  • Fuyuko Enatsu, a coroner: 8 episodes, October 1980 – 1996
  • Yumi Katayama, a private eye: 4 episodes, June 1984–April 1994 （1986）
  • Ayuko Toda, a nurse: 3 episodes, June 1992 – 1993
  • Kayoko Ike, a woman mystery writer: 2 episodes, April 1994–June 1995
  • Yoko Imai, a custom inspector: 1 episode, 1987
  • Asako Yamura, a woman mystery writer, TV news caster: 1 episode, 1983
  • Asako Ogawa, a female college student-hosutesu: 1 episode, May 1984
  • Asako Sawaki, a woman mystery writer: 8 episodes, May 1989 – 1994

Single titles

  • Disappeared in the Sea of Melaka January, 1974.
  • The Corpse Likes Air Conditioner June, 1976
  • 78 titles between October 1976 and July 1997
  • 3 titles published post mortem between September 1998 and December 2002.

Misa Yamamura Anthology

10 volumes published between 1989 and 1990

Essays

Screen plays

SWAT: 2 episodes, 1970

Original stories

Manga
A series of five manga books published by Akita Shoten including:
Adventure computer games
Nintendo DS

Translated titles

Coffin of Flowers
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  • *, also known as "T︠S︡vety smerti: sbornik zhenskogo detektiva"
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  • The Dark Ring of Murder
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  • Glass Coffin
  • * (From the series of "Asako Yamura, a woman mystery writer, TV news caster"）
  • Others
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