Yōko Sano


Yōko Sano was a Japanese writer and illustrator of children's books.
She is most well known for her 1977 book The Cat that Lived a Million Times. For her literary contributions, Sano was awarded the Medal of Honor with the Purple Ribbon in 2003 by the Emperor of Japan. She has also written essays, children's literature, screenplays, novels, and translated foreign picture books.

Personal life

Yōko Sano was born in Beijing, China, on June 28, 1938, as the eldest daughter of seven children. When she was seven years old, her family moved to Dalian, China. Her father worked for the Mancuria Railway Research Department. In 1947 after the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Sano's family returned to Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan, where she initially stayed with her paternal uncle.
In 1942, she lost her third brother, and in 1947, her fourth brother, and in 1948, she lost her beloved older brother. In 1958, Sano lost her father, Toshikazu. Sano's later writing style was said to be influenced by these losses, as well as by her strained relationship with her mother, Shizu.
Sano moved to Shizuoka City, Japan in 1950, and then to Shimizu in 1952. In 1958, the same year that she lost her father, Sano began attending Musashino Art University.  Her classmates included Kōga Hirano and Kazuo Kamimura.
In 1962, after graduation, Sano joined an advertising company as a designer and illustrator.  Around this time, she got married for the first time, eventually divorcing her first husband in 1980.
In the winter of 1966, Sano traveled to Europe and studied lithography at the Berlin School of Design for six months. She returned to Japan in 1968, and her eldest son, illustrator and painter Gen Hirose, was born later that year.
In 1990, she married the poet Shuntarō Tanikawa, and collaborated with him on his poetry volume Onni Ni, which she illustrated. They divorced in 1996.
In 2004, Sano underwent surgery to treat breast cancer, without success. She died on November 5, 2010, at a hospital in Tokyo, Japan, at 72 years old.

Career

In 1971, Sano made her debut as a picture book author with Mr. Goat's Move. A writer of many talents, Sano would go on to publish numerous children's books, becoming a staple of Japanese children's literature. She produced various styles of picture books, including Ojisan no kasa, Watashi no bōshi, and Nē tōsan. In 1977, Sano published her most well known picture book, The Cat Who Lived a Million Times, which became a domestic and international best-seller. By 2013, it had sold over 2 million copies.
In 1982, she published her first collection of essays, Please Forgive My Cats. In 1983, she won the first Niimi Nankichi Children's Literature Award for her children's story, When I Was a Little Sister. Throughout her career, Sano also produced illustrations for others’ works, translated foreign picture books into Japanese, wrote screenplays, and published novels. Her script Jitensha buta ga yatte kita was used in stage performances for children by the Maru Theater Company. In 1988, Sano published her first full-length autobiographical novel, The Right Heart.
Among other collaborative work, she illustrated a volume of Shuntarō Tanikawa's poems, Onna Ni, which was translated into English by William I. Eliott and Kazuo Kawamura and won the American Book Award in 1989.
In 2003, she was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in Japan for her literary work and influence. In 2004, Sano received the Kobayashi Hideo Prize for her essay collection There is No God or Buddha.
In her essay collection Useless Days, Sano confessed that she had only two years left to live due to her cancer. That same year, her mother Shizu died at age 93. In 2008, she received the 31st Iwaya Konami Literary Prize for her many years of creative work as a children's book author.
Her last collection of essays was I'm Ready to Die, which was published June 2011, after she died in 2010.

Posthumous

In 2012, a documentary, The Cat that Lived a Million Times was released, taking its name from Sano's popular 1977 children's book. It focused on Sano's later years, legacy, and her impact on the lives of young people in Japan. The movie was directed by Tadasuke Kotani and was shown at several film festivals.
In 2014, Yoko-san no Kotoba, a picture book-style introduction to Sano's essays, was produced and broadcast on NHK's One Seg 2 and Educational TV channels.

Awards and nominations

  • 1974 - Nominated for the 22nd Sankei Children's Publishing Culture Award for her picture book Uncle’s Umbrella
  • 1977 - Won the Kodansha Publishing Culture Award Picture Book Award for her picture book My Hat
  • 1983 - Winner of the Niimi Nankichi Literature Award for the children's story When I Was a Little Sister
  • 1988 - Sankei Children's Publishing Culture Award for the children's story I'm Here
  • 2000 – Winner of the Japan Picture Book Award for her translation of the picture book Hello, Red Fox! by Eric Carle
  • 2002 - Winner of the Japan Picture Book Award and the Shogakukan Children's Publishing Culture Award for the picture book Hey Papa
  • 2003 - Medal of Honor with the Purple Ribbon
  • 2004 - Received the Kobayashi Literary Award

Selected publications

Picture books

  • Sue-chan and the Cat
  • Uncle's Umbrella
  • "Because, But, Granny"
  • My Hat
  • Remember the Big Tree
  • I'm a Cat
  • The Cat Who Lived a Million Times
  • The Sounds of That Day, Grandma
  • Flying Lion
  • My Friend is Momo
  • I'll Give You My Bird
  • Children
  • Ordinary Bear
  • Sorry for being completely different
  • Santa Claus is an Old Lady
  • Peter and the Wolf
  • * There is also a CD of the book read by Sanma Akashiya.

Illustrations

  • Seven Pockets

Others

  • When I was a Little Sister
  • Please Forgive My Cats
  • Acacia, Karatachi, and Wheat Fields
  • Just a Pig
  • Cats Only: The World of Yoko Sano
  • An Introduction to Love Theory
  • Admission fee: 880 yen
  • All Lies: New Interpretation of World Fairy Tales
  • Love is the Best
  • I Don't Think So
  • When I opened the door to that garden
  • I'm Here
  • Pig Over There, Pig Over There
  • Go Mojimoji Go Gorilla
  • Otome-chan: A Little Story of Love and Fantasy
  • Friends are Useless
  • The Right Heart
  • Yoko Sano's book
  • When I Was a Little Sister/Children
  • My Christmas Tree
  • Ordinary is Great
  • Peko Peko
  • From Kokoro
  • Michiko's Lazy Diary
  • Two Summers
  • A Woman
  • Catmania
  • The Woman Over There, the Cat Over There: A Collection of Yoko Sano's Illustrations and Prose
  • I Hate This, I Love That
  • Sister and Dad
  • There is no God or Buddha 　
  • I Don't Remember 　
  • Shizuko-san 　
  • Useless Days
  • When the Angel Was
  • There's a Problem
  • Mr. Kuku's Marriage, Mrs. Kiki's Happiness
  • Yoko Sano Dialogue Collection: The Basics of Life
  • I'm Ready to Die