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Amy Yamada

Japanese writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ279973
Source-derived summary

Amy Yamada (山田 詠美, Yamada Eimi; born February 2, 1959) is a contemporary Japanese writer who is most famous for her stories that address issues of sexuality, racism, and interracial love and marriage. Her debut and subsequent popular success in the 1990s was a part of Japan's hip-hop and Black culture boom. While she is most known for her stories of complicated and messy romantic love, she also writes on the daily minutiae of life (slice-of-life), child-raising, and bullying.

Biography

Yamada Amy (born Yamada Futaba 山田双葉) was born in Itabashi, Tokyo and moved frequently after the age of 2, due to the nature of her father's job. Over the course of her childhood, she lived in Sapporo City, Kaga City, Ashida City, Kanuma City. This transient lifestyle forced her to confront issues of separation and bullying, issues that many of her protagonists also deal with.

According to her interview with the Japanese magazine Bungei, during middle school she was moved by African-American soul music and began to read any novels she could find written by black people, or featuring black people. She held a job in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, an area rich with foreigners. In high school, she was a member of the Arts, Mountaineering, and Literature Club. Her favorite authors were Boris Vian and Francoise Sagan.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Amy Yamada” as japanese writer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Yamada, Japanese and writer.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1959—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1959-02-08. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Yamada, Japanese and writer providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Amy Yamada”, the useful work is to connect “japanese writer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q279973. VIAF identifies the subject as 34517033. The Library of Congress control number is n87868248. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1959.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Amy Yamada”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Amy Yamada primary sources, Amy Yamada archive and Yamada research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Amy Yamada”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Amy Yamada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.