Fumiko Kometani

Fumiko Kometani, born in Osaka in 1930, is a Japanese writer and painter who has lived for many years in the United States. She is of interest chiefly for her move from abstract painting to literature and for her prize-winning fiction in Japan.

In 1960 she moved to the United States, where she was working as an abstract painter. During a stay at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire she met her husband, Josh Greenfeld, and the couple later settled in California. When caring for her son, who had a developmental disability, made it hard to keep painting, she turned her efforts to writing. Her older son, Karl Taro Greenfeld, is also a writer.

Her literary work earned her three major awards in 1985: the Bungakkai shinjinshō, the Shinchō shinjinshō and the Akutagawa Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in Japan. In 1998 she received the Murasaki Shikibu Prize. Kometani has voiced her opposition to what she calls the fascist mentality of the Japanese Army during the Second World War, and she takes part in anti-war and anti-nuclear protests.