Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto "favors short novels that gradually reveal thin, almost translucent layers of her characters' personalities," as a critic for Publishers Weekly once explained. The author has become a worldwide phenomenon, with millions of fans falling in love with her novels and waiting eagerly for the next one--a circumstance referred to on the many Web pages dedicated to her as "Banana-mania." Yoshimoto's fans tend to be fanatical in their devotion to her work, exchanging testimonials and gossip about the author on the Internet and anxiously speculating about which novel will be the next one translated into their own language.

Yoshimoto was born Mahoko Yoshimoto in Tokyo in 1964. She chose to publish under the name Banana Yoshimoto, she explained in an interview posted at her Web site, "because I love banana flowers." Her father, Takaaki Yoshimoto, was a famous literary critic, poet, and commentator; his works were...