In November 1987, Yoshimoto won the 6th Kaien Newcomer Writers Prize for Kitchen in 1988, the novel was nominated for the Mishima Yukio Prize, and in 1989, it received the 39th Minister of Education's Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists. There have been two film adaptations: a Japanese TV movie and a more widely released version titled Wo ai chu fang, produced in Hong Kong by Ho Yim in 1997. Her debut work, Kitchen (1988), had over 60 printings in Japan alone. Yoshimoto began her writing career while working as a waitress at a golf club restaurant, in 1987. Each day she takes half an hour to write at her computer, and she says, 'I tend to feel guilty because I write these stories almost for fun.' Between 20, she maintained an online journal for English-speaking fans. Yoshimoto keeps her personal life guarded and reveals little about her certified rolfing practitioner husband, Hiroyoshi Tahata, or son (born in 2003). While there, she adopted the pseudonym 'Banana', after her love of banana flowers, a name she recognizes as both 'cute' and 'purposefully androgynous.'

Yoshimoto graduated from Nihon University's College of Art with a major in literature. Her father was the poet and critic Takaaki Yoshimoto, and her sister, Haruno Yoiko, is a well-known cartoonist in Japan. Yoshimoto was born in Tokyo on July 24, 1964, and grew up in a liberal family. From 2002 to 2015, she wrote her name in hiragana ( よしもとばなな). Banana Yoshimoto ( 吉本ばなな, Yoshimoto Banana, born 24 July 1964 ) is the pen name of Japanese writer Mahoko Yoshimoto ( 吉本真秀子, Yoshimoto Mahoko).

Banana yoshimoto book