Banana Yoshimoto was born on July 24, 1964 in Tokyo. She graduated from Nihon University and majored in literature. Her first work was the novel "Kitchen" which was very successful and she won the 6th Kaien Newcomers Writers Prize in November 1987 and then the 16th Izumi Kyoka Literary Prize in January, 1988. Her works including "Kitchen" are translated and published in more than 20 countries. "N.P." is one of four of Yoshimoto's novels to be translated into English, and was released in the U.S. in 1994. All of her collection of ten books and couple essays has been given a title of bananamania.
             The novel takes place in Japan during summer. It is described as a hot summer night and everyone is sitting around a bonfire telling ghost stories. This novel becomes the 100th story which is always thought of as the "mysterious one". The main character of the book is telling the 100th story which she had experienced last year, sitting by the bonfire on a hot summer night.
             There are five main and important minor characters in this book. Each of these characters is affected by the book inside this book which is also called "NP" and was written by Sarao Takase in English. The book was a collection of 97 stories but the main character finds a 98th story of the book which was written by Takase right before he committed suicide. The first and the main character is Kazami, who is the girl that is telling the entire story through her own eyes about the "NP" she had found. The next important character is Shoji, who tried to translate the 98th story from English to Japanese and died of sadness while doing it. He was described by Kazami when she said, "From the moment we met, I was a butterfly that flew into that space that was his soul." Another important character is Otohiko who is the son of Takase. Saki is
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