Biography

Taku Mayumura (眉村卓 Mayumura Taku, 20 October 1934 – 3 November 2019) was a Japanese novelist, science fiction writer and haiku poet. He won the Seiun Award for Novel twice. His novel Shiseikan (司政官, Administrator, one story of the "Shiseikan series"), written in 1974, was translated into English by Daniel Jackson in 2004. Mayumura was also a young adult fiction writer whose works have been adapted into TV drama, film, and anime. Mayumura was an honorary member of the SFWJ (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan). Mayumura was born as Murakami Takuji (村上卓児), at Osaka city, Osaka prefecture in 1934. He graduated from Osaka University in 1957 with a degree in economics, as well as a judo competition career at the Nanatei league. After graduation, he joined a company. While working at this company, he wrote short novels and submitted them to contests in commercial literary magazines.

He started professionally as a copywriter.In 1960, he joined the SF fanzine Uchūjin. In 1961, he won the Best Story prize in the 1st Kūsō-Kagaku Shōsetsu Contest (later the Hayakawa SF Contest) for his novel Kakyū Aidea-man (Junior Idea-Man) and made his debut in the S-F Magazine with this work.

In 1965, he retired from the company and started working as an independent writer. Mayumura's first book, the science fiction novel Moeru Keisha (燃える傾斜), was published by Tōto Shobo in the same year.

In 1976, his book Psychic School Wars was released, and was later adapted into both live action and anime versions.In 1979, he won the seventh Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature and the Seiun Award for his novel Shōmetsu no Kōrin, which is the representative work in his "Shiseikan series". In 1996, he won his second Seiun Award for another entry in the Shiseikan series, the long novel Hikishio no Toki.

His story Toraerareta School Bus inspired the 1986 anime film Toki no Tabibito - Time Stranger.Mayumura was also a well-known young adult fiction writer. His representative works in this field were Nazo no Tenkousei and Nerawareta Gakuen etc. These works were adapted into TV Drama series by NHK, and adapted into Cinema too. Other juvenile fictions by Mayumura were adapted into the anime Toki no Tabibito.

In 2002, his wife died of cancer. Mayumura had been writing a very short story every day for his wife, who was in the hospital bedridden since the cancer had been diagnosed. When his stories, which were written each day and numbered, reached to 1778, his wife died. These stories were compiled and published. The film Boku to Tsuma no 1778 no Monogatari, based on this true story, was released in 2011.In 2004, he work Administrator was published in English.As of 2008, Mayumura was a professor of the Graduate School of Osaka University of Arts.

In 2012, an anime film adaptation was being created of his science fiction children's novel Nerawareta Gakuen, which is a set in a prep school. At that time, the book had also inspired four live-action TV adaptations, and two live-action films.In 2020, he was posthumously awarded the Meritorious Service Award in its 40th Nihon SF Taishō Awards by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ).