Thornton, Naoko Fuwa 1943-

PERSONAL:

Born January 3, 1943, in Tokyo, Japan; daughter of Hiroshi (a publisher and poet) and Miyo (Takabe) Fuwa; married Ronald W. Thornton (a university professor), March 20, 1968; children: Takeshi Arthur, Peter Guy. Ethnicity: "Japanese."Education: Japan Women's University, B.A., 1965; Indiana University, M.A., 1967, Ph.D., 1973.

ADDRESSES:

Home—2-24-25 Kamakurayama, Kamakura, Kanagawa 248-0031, Japan. Office—Japan Women's University, 2-8-1 Mejirodai, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8681, Japan. E-mail—thornton@aurora.ocn.ne.jp.

CAREER:

Writer. Indiana University—Bloomington, visiting lecturer in Japanese, 1972-73; Japan Women's University, Tokyo, lecturer, 1978-83, assistant professor, 1983-87, associate professor, 1987-92, professor of English, 1992—.

MEMBER:

International Comparative Literature Association, English Literary Society of Japan (board member), American Literature Society of Japan, Comparative Literature Society of Japan, Modern Language Association of America.

WRITINGS:

(Translator into English) The Voice of the Writer 1984,Japan PEN Club (Tokyo, Japan), 1986.

Yuudora uerutei no sekai: jozetu to chinmoku no shinwa (title means "The World of Eudora Welty: Myths of Garrulity and Silence"), Kobian Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1988.

Strange Felicity: Eudora Welty's Subtexts on Fiction and Society, Praeger Publishers (Westport, CT), 2003.

Translator into Japanese of works by Eudora Welty and Kakuzo Okakura. Contributor to The Force of Vision,University of Tokyo Press (Tokyo, Japan), 1994; and to books published in Japanese. Contributor of nearly fifty articles to periodicals, including Hikaku Bungaku: Journal of Comparative Literature, Studies in English Literature, Comparative Literature Studies, and Southern Quarterly.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Authorship: An Ideology;research on the "southern gothic."

SIDELIGHTS:

Naoko Fuwa Thornton told CA: "My recent book on Eudora Welty, Strange Felicity: Eudora Welty's Subtexts on Fiction and Society, came from my long-lasting interest in Welty and my rather recent interest in the concept of authorship. Before this book, I had published quite a few articles on Welty and a book, Yuudora uerutei no sekai: chinmoku to jozetu no shinwa, the only book on Welty in Japanese so far. I had also published Japanese translations of Welty's The Golden Apples and The Ponder Heart.

"Through all those years, Welty's fictions quite frequently created in me an impression that they were telling us, among other things, something about themselves as fictions. In such fictions, I recognized, under what could be considered the surface story, the power of that particular form of fiction she had chosen to achieve the effect she desired; more broadly, I discerned Welty's ideas of such general issues as the power of fiction or the role of fiction for the reader as well as the author. This recognition did not remain merely an impression, but it came to be confirmed with a theoretical backing, as my interest in literary theory in general and in authorship was deepened.

"As a result I wrote my book, which is solely devoted to the self-reflexivity, or metafictionality, of Welty's major works, an area that had not yet been explored comprehensively. Although I had authored many articles on Welty in English, this was the first time for me to write a book in English. I am happy that I was able to publish it through one of the major publishers in the United States.

"Presently I am working on a book on the history of the concept of authorship, from Plato to postmodernist ideas. Since it is such a large subject, it is taking longer than I had expected, but I am hoping to complete it in a year or so."