Alongside manuscripts and materials related to his literary works, this collection contains many documents that detail who Milton Murayama was as a person and paint a picture of the life he lived. These types of materials are stored in the “Biographical Information” series. This series is divided into two sub-series -- “Personal and Family Papers” and “Achievements, Awards, Certificates” – according to the nature of these documents and how they can be categorized.

“Personal and Family Papers” can best be described as containing documents about Milton Murayama’s daily life and the lives of his family members. These criteria encompass a broad range of genres including class notes about a graduate course Murayama took at Columbia University, essays written by his wife Dawn, files containing restricted financial and medical information, information about his house in San Francisco, and vignettes he wrote about his siblings and the history of the Murayama family name. These documents provide a wealth of supporting evidence anchoring the events and characters of Murayama’s books to their nonfictional counterparts.

The “Achievements, Awards, Certificates” sub-series’ focus is two-fold: important documents related Murayama’s life and identity and documents specifically related to his career achievements. In particular, this sub-series contains the copyright forms for Murayama’s novels, ephemera related to writing awards he won (including the 1991 Hawaii Award for Literature), school diplomas and transcripts, his birth and marriage certificates, and finally paperwork from his military service during World War II.