Taniguchi, Yuko 1975–

PERSONAL:

Born 1975, in Yokohama, Japan; immigrated to the United States, c. 1990; married Peter Wenzel (a nurse). Education: College of St. Benedict/St. John's University, B.A.; University of Minnesota, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Southeast Rochester, MN.

CAREER:

Author. Taught at the Rochester Community and Technical College for two years, and the Loft Literary Center; Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, part-time worker in the Venables Health Sciences Library; teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota.

AWARDS, HONORS:

McKnight Artist Fellowship for Writers, McKnight Foundation; travel and study grant, Jerome Foundation; artist assistance fellowship, Minnesota State Arts Board.

WRITINGS:

Foreign Wife Elegy (poems), Coffee House Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2004.

The Ocean in the Closet (novel), Coffee House Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Yuko Taniguchi started a promising writing career with 2004's poetry collection Foreign Wife Elegy and the 2005 novel The Ocean in the Closet. These publications, plus her career as an English and creative-writing teacher, are solid accomplishments for a Japanese woman who was not fluent in English until she was a teenager. Interested in the English language as a young teen, she convinced her parents to let her go to America to study when she was fifteen. They agreed to let her go, and Taniguchi finished her high school education in Maryland. After a brief return to Japan, she went back to the United States to earn bachelor's and master's degrees. At college she also met her future husband, who now works as a nurse at the Mayo Clinic. Her poetry book draws on her experiences as a Japanese immigrant, as well as on her husband's work dealing with life-and-death situations. Calling the poems in Foreign Wife Elegy ‘fresh and original,’ Louis McKee observed in Library Journal that the poet ‘finds an odd solace in the stories that her husband, a nurse, brings home from his job."

The Ocean in the Closet is a fiction work that nevertheless builds on the author's Japanese American experience. A complex tale of people tied to both the East and the West, the story features Helen Johnson, a young girl whose mother is half Japanese and whose father is a Vietnam War veteran. Helen's mother is mentally disturbed because of a difficult childhood in Japan, where her mother died in the firebombing of Tokyo and she was rejected because her father was American. In distress, she locks Helen and Helen's little brother in the closet, telling them scary stories of an evil ghost to keep them there. Meanwhile, Helen's father has become withdrawn, battling demons from the war. Realizing that their home has become a poor environment for children, the parents agree to send them to their Uncle Steve. Helen finds a happier life there before going on a journey of discovery to Japan at the invitation of her Great Uncle Hideo. In Japan, Helen learns a great deal about her family's history, including why her mother is so troubled.

A few critics of The Ocean in the Closet found it to be a somewhat flawed novel. A Kirkus Reviews writer, for one, complained that Helen's parents ‘remain ciphers’ in the book and that the search for the truth to her mother's past ‘lacks driving conflict.’ ‘Very little actually happens,’ remarked a Publishers Weekly contributor, adding that ‘Helen is too naive’ to support the story as narrator. In contrast, Booklist critic Deborah Donovan described the novel as ‘a lyrical telling of a little-explored piece of history,’ while Leann Restaino, writing in Library Journal, concluded that ‘poetic descriptions and the touching interplay of the various members of this extended family make this a wonderful book."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2007, Deborah Donovan, review of The Ocean in the Closet, p. 24.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2007, review of The Ocean in the Closet.

Library Journal, September 1, 2003, Louis McKee, review of Foreign Wife Elegy, p. 172; June 15, 2007, Leann Restaino, review of The Ocean in the Closet, p. 58.

Publishers Weekly, March 26, 2007, review of The Ocean in the Closet, p. 67.

ONLINE

Rochester Magazine Online,http://www.rochestermagazine.com/ (May 1, 2007), Megan Malugani, ‘Novel Approach,’ review of The Ocean in the Closet.

Yuko Taniguchi Home Page,http://www.yukotaniguchi.com (October 31, 2007).