Biography

Inuhiko Yomota (四方田犬彦, Yomota Inuhiko, born February 20, 1953) is a Japanese author, cultural essayist, translator and film historian. His real name is Goki Yomota (四方田剛己, Yomota Gōki). Inuhiko Yomota was born on February 20, 1953, in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, but grew up in Tokyo. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in religious studies, and continued in graduate school there to study comparative literature and culture. After finishing graduate school, he traveled the world as a guest professor and researcher at Konkuk University in South Korea, Columbia University in the United States, the University of Bologna in Italy, Tel Aviv University in Israel and Pristina University in Kosovo. He was formerly a professor of film studies and comparative literature at Meiji Gakuin University. He is married to Chie Tarumi, a scholar of Taiwanese literature during the Japanese occupation.

His main area of study is film history, particularly the history of film in East Asian countries, and organizes an annual symposium on differing topics in film history. His other areas of study include cooking, literature, manga, music, cultural minorities, foreign language, and foreign countries (especially Korea).

Inuhiko Yomota has published nearly eighty books since the beginning of his career and has won several literary prizes for his work, including the Kodansha Essay Prize. He has also translated works by American and Palestinian authors into Japanese.