Fumio TAKANO


Fumio was born in Tsuchiura City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan on September 14th 1966, and grew up there. She was a student of Western medieval history at the Department of Humanities, College of Humanities, Ibaraki University 1985-1990, with one year leave because of the onset of insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. After a short period of work for a small publisher, she continued her study under Professor Tadami CHIZUKA at the Division of Humanities, Ochanomizu University Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, and graduated from it with a M.A. degree. And she studied the bell canto style singing under Hiroyuki SATO (opera singer, conductor) and participated a school youth orchestra and a amteur choir during 80's.

In 1984. she began writing short stories intermittently, when she was a high school student. Her first submited story passed a preliminary of 12th Hayakawa SF Contest in 1986. In 1988 her play Elevation won the accessit prize of 2nd Aoyama Round Thatre Play Concour. It missed the grand prix as ir was judgied imposible to realize, and the grand prix was not given to any play this year. Afterwards the play was rewritten as a novel Vaslav.

In 1994 her second novel Musica Machina (inspired by Trevor Horn and Franz Welser-Most) was nominated for the 6th Japan Fantasy Novel Prize. It was published next year, which was the first step of her career as a novelist.

Professional critics, novelists, and translators selected Musica Machina as one of the best 30 Japanese SF novels of 1990s. Takano's novels were nominated for several awards, but alas! she still is an uncrowned monarch (can important personage of Japanese SF, Mr. H. A.).

In 2002 Takano married Toru INOUE, who studies history of cinema, especially Russian and Soviet films. He is also a translator, editor, writer. After marriage she began living in Tokyo. From 2004 she is a member of honorable "Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ)."

November 2004, she was invited as s first Japanese novelist guest to Strannik ( Congress of Russian writers, "Странник" Конгресс фантастов России) in St.Petersburg Russia.

2007, Mari Kotani (a science fiction and fantasy critics and s chair of the Women Writer Committie of Japan PEN Club) treated her works in 'Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime' published by Univ Of Minnesota Press.

edited by Toru Inoue