Mori Mari

was a Japanese author, best known for writing male homosexual romances.

Early life and family Mari Mori was born in Hongō, Tokyo. Her father was novelist Mori Ōgai.

Career Mori won the Japan Essayist Club Award in 1957 for a collection of essays called My Father's Hat. She began a movement of writing about male homosexual passion (tanbi shousetsu, literally "aesthetic novels") in 1961 with A Lovers' Forest, , which won the Tamura Toshiko Prize. Later works include I Don't Go on Sundays (1961) and The Bed of Dead Leaves (1962).

She was greatly influenced by her father; in A Lover's Forest, the older man can be seen as imbued with the same virtues and honor as she saw in her father. An older man and younger boy are trademarks of Mari Mori's work. The older man is extremely rich, powerful, wise, and spoils the younger boy. In The Lover's Forest, for example, the older man, Guido, is 38 or so, and Paulo is 17 or 18. (However, he is not yet 19, the age that Mori was when her father died). Paulo is extraordinarily beautiful, prone to lounge lazily, and has a lack of willpower in all but the field of his pleasure. (Guido dies when Paolo is 19, and Paulo subsequently falls in love with a man who's been waiting in the wings, another one just like Guido). New York University Professor Keith Vincent has called her a "Japanese Electra", referring to the Electra complex counterpart put forth by Carl Jung to Sigmund Freud's Oedipal complex.

In 1975 her novel won the 3rd Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature.

Personal life Her first husband was Tamaki Yamada (1893-1943), an assistant professor of French literature and librarian at the Tokyo Imperial University who co-founded the University of Tokyo Buddhist Literature Department, whom she married in 1919 and divorced in 1927, having had two children. Her second husband was Akira Sato (佐藤彰).

Mori Mari died of heart failure on 6 June 1987.

Selected works

Novels and essays

Chichi no Bōshi (父の帽子), 1957 Kutsu no Oto (靴の音), 1958 Nōkaishoku no Sakana (濃灰色の魚), 1959 Koibito-tachi no Mori (恋人たちの森), 1961 Kareha no Nedoko (枯葉の寝床), 1962 Zeitaku Binbō (贅沢貧乏), 1963 Kioku no E (記憶の絵), 1968 Watashi no Bi no Sekai (私の美の世界), 1968 Amai Mitsu no Heya (甘い蜜の部屋), 1975

Posthumous publication

Best of Dokkiri Channel (ベスト・オブ・ドッキリチャンネル), 1994 Maria no Kimagure Kaki (マリアの気紛れ書き), 1995 Ma ri no Hitorigoto (魔利のひとりごと), 1997 Binbō Savarin (貧乏サヴァラン), 1998 Boyaki to Ikari no Maria: Aru Henshū-sha e no Tegami (ぼやきと怒りのマリア ある編集者への手紙), 1998 Maria no Unuborekagami (マリアのうぬぼれ鏡), 2000 Maria no Kūsō Ryokō (マリアの空想旅行), 2006 Mori Mari: Watashi no Naka no Alice no Sekai (森茉莉 私の中のアリスの世界), 2010 Kōcha to Bara no Hibi (紅茶と薔薇の日々), 2016 Zeitaku Binbō no Osharejō (贅沢貧乏のお洒落帖), 2016 Kōfuku wa Tada Watashi no Heya no Naka dake ni (幸福はただ私の部屋の中だけに), 2017 Kuroneko Juliet no Hanashi (黒猫ジュリエットの話), 2017 Chichi to Watashi: Ren'ai no Yōna Mono (父と私 恋愛のようなもの), 2018

Collections

Mori Mari: Roman to Essay (森茉莉・ロマンとエッセー), 1983-1983 Mori Mari Complete Works (森茉莉全集), 1993-94

Illustrated books

Yōsei Sophie: Ishikawa Yōji Photobook (妖精ソフィ 石川洋司写真集), 1981 Watashi no Binanshi-ron (私の美男子論), 1995