吉本ばなな Information Page (Created by John Aguilar)

Here's the obligatory 吉本ばなな wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Yoshimoto

吉本ばなな has her own website. There's an interesting Q&A section on her site. Here's a quick excerpt:

Q.How did you come up with this pen name, Banana?
A.Just because I love banana flowers.

Kind of disappointing. I thought there might have been a funny story behind the name.
The Q&A is available in English and Japanese.

Japanese:http://www.yoshimotobanana.com/jp/faq.html

English:http://www.yoshimotobanana.com/en/faq.html

Or you can just visit the main page of her website and look around:

http://www.yoshimotobanana.com/

And lastly, a brief synopsis of とかげ (the work we're reading):

http://abyss.hubbe.net/banana/lizard.html