Shno Junz's parents named his two older brothers after novelist Mori gai and the Japanese word for "English" (eigo), respectively. Shno's father, an educator, gave his third son the name Junz because the Chinese character jun contained the water radical, which he felt combined poetically with no, the character for field. As a writer Shno mirrors his father's sensitivity to the subtle nuances of language, and he draws his material from the experiences of his childhood and from the lives of his own expanding family. Although he has published a large number of zuihitsu (essays), some lengthy novels, and several children's stories, Shno's dominant--nearly exclusive--narrative genre is the short story. He has been greatly inspired by the writings of Charles Lamb, Katherine Mansfield, and William Saroyan, as well as by the concise understatement of haiku poetry.

Shno Junz was born 9 February 1921 in Osaka's Sumiyoshi-ku. He was the third...