Dale
Furutani is a third generation Japanese American (a sansei). He was born in
Hilo, Hawaii, on December 1, 1946.
His family is originally from Oshima Island, which is south of
Hiroshima. His grandfather and grandmother came to Hawaii in 1896 to work on
the sugar plantations as indentured servants, but his grandfather soon escaped
his contract and eventually became a successful fisherman, until his fishing
boat was taken from him during World War II. (The U.S. government decided that
since his fishing boat had a radio, he might be a spy!)
Dale's mother was at Pearl Harbor during the infamous attack on December 7,
1941. She was at
a church camp over the harbor, and could see the
attack unfold below her. During the war she worked for the American Red Cross
in Honolulu.
When he was five, Dale was adopted by John Flanagan, and moved to
California. There he met with racial prejudice for the first time, as he was
virtually the only Asian in his school.
Dale
went to California State University, Long Beach, where he received a degree in
Creative Writing, and UCLA, where he received an MBA in Marketing and
Information Systems. He worked his way through undergraduate school writing
articles and serving as a contributing editor for various magazines.
Dale started writing book-length
fiction in 1993, and Death in Little Tokyo
is his first novel. It was nominated for an Agatha award, an Anthony Award and
a Macavity award as Best First Mystery. It won both the Anthony and the
Macavity, making Dale the first Asian American to ever win a major mystery
award. His second Ken Tanaka mystery novel, The Toyotomi Blades, appeared in
October, 1997. In 1998, he started a new historical series with Death at the
Crossroads, the first book in a mystery trilogy.
He has also had three non-fiction books and over 250 articles published. He
has won prizes for his poetry and had a one-act play produced while he was in
college.
For 19 years, Dale has owned a small consulting company that
specializes in the automotive industry. Nissan, Subaru, J.D. Power and
Associates, Land Rover North America, Xerox, and Isuzu are among his many
clients. He has also served as President of a software company and Parts
Marketing Manager for Yamaha motorcycles. Currently he is Director of
Information Technology for Nissan Motor Corp. in U.S.A.
Dale has been married for almost 30 years, and he, his wife Sharon, and
their unruly Labrador Retriever, Darby, live in Los Angeles, California.
The photograph to the left was taken by Alan Miyatake of the Toyo Miyatake
Studio. Alan's grandfather, Toyo, is the man who smuggled a lens into a
relocation camp and made a camera out of box wood. Toyo took many of the
photos that chronicled the camp experience. There's a sculpture of a camera
outside the Japanese American National Museum that's dedicated to Toyo
Miyatake.
Visit Dale Furutani's homepage.
