Kumi Kimura
Kumi Kimura is a Japanese writer. She won the Literary World Newcomer Award for her debut novel, and has subsequently been shortlisted twice for the Akutagawa Prize and won the Bunkamura Deux Magots Literary Prize. Someone to Watch Over You is her first work to be translated into English.
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Ango Sakaguchi
From Niigata, Sakaguchi (坂口安吾) was one of a group of young Japanese writers to rise to prominence in the years immediately following Japan's defeat in World War II. In 1946 he wrote his most famous essay, titled "Darakuron" ("On Decadence"), which examined the role of bushido during the war. It is widely argued that he saw postwar Japan as decadent, yet more truthful than a wartime Japan built on illusions like bushido.
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Ango was born in 1906, and was the 12th child of 13. He was born in the middle of a Japan perpetually at war. His father was the president of the Niigata Shinbun (Newspaper), a politician, and a poet.
Ango wanted to be a writer at 16. He moved to Tokyo at 17, after hitting a teacher who caught him truanting. His father died fr -
Uno Chiyo
Uno Chiyo (宇野 千代) was a female Japanese author who wrote several notable works and a known kimono designer. She had a significant influence on Japanese fashion, film and literature. She became part of the Bohemian world of Tokyo, having liaisons with other writers, poets and painters
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In later years, Uno’s popularity was given formal status as she was recognized by the Emperor and assumed the honor of being one of Japan’s oldest and most talented female writers. -
Tomoka Shibasaki
Tomoka Shibasaki (柴崎 友香) is a Japanese author. She graduated from Osaka Prefecture University and worked for four years before her debut in 2000, the novel Kyō no dekigoto, which was filmed by Isao Yukisada in 2003.
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In 2014 she won the 151th Akutagawa Prize with her novel Haru no niwa.
See also 柴崎 友香. -
Natsuo Kirino
NATSUO KIRINO (桐野夏生), born in 1951 in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture) was an active and spirited child brought up between her two brothers, one being six years older and the other five years younger than her. Kirino's father, being an architect, took the family to many cities, and Kirino spent her youth in Sendai, Sapporo, and finally settled in Tokyo when she was fourteen, which is where she has been residing since. Kirino showed glimpses of her talent as a writer in her early stages—she was a child with great deal of curiosity, and also a child who could completely immerse herself in her own unique world of imagination.
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After completing her law degree, Kirino worked in various fields before becoming a fictional writer; including scheduling -
Yōko Tawada
Yōko Tawada (多和田葉子 Tawada Yōko, born March 23, 1960) is a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany. She writes in both Japanese and German.
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Tawada was born in Tokyo, received her undergraduate education at Waseda University in 1982 with a major in Russian literature, then studied at Hamburg University where she received a master's degree in contemporary German literature. She received her doctorate in German literature at the University of Zurich. In 1987 she published Nur da wo du bist da ist nichts—Anata no iru tokoro dake nani mo nai (A Void Only Where You Are), a collection of poems in a German and Japanese bilingual edition.
Tawada's Missing Heels received the Gunzo Prize for New Writers in 1991, and The Bridegroom Was a Dog r -
Osamu Dazai
Osamu DAZAI (native name: 太宰治, real name Shūji Tsushima) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as Shayō (The Setting Sun) and Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human), are considered modern-day classics in Japan.
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With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai’s stories have intrigued the minds of many readers. His books also bring about awareness to a number of important topics such as human nature, mental illness, social relationships, and postwar Japan. -
Seishi Yokomizo
Seishi Yokomizo (横溝 正史) was a novelist in Shōwa period Japan.
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Yokomizo was born in the city of Kobe, Hyōgo (兵庫県 神戸市). He read detective stories as a boy and in 1921, while employed by the Daiichi Bank, published his first story in the popular magazine "Shin Seinen" (新青年[New Youth]). He graduated from Osaka Pharmaceutical College (currently part of Osaka University) with a degree in pharmacy, and initially intended to take over his family's drug store even though sceptical of the contemporary ahistorical attitude towards drugs. However, drawn by his interest in literature, and the encouragement of Edogawa Rampo (江戸川 乱歩), he went to Tokyo instead, where he was hired by the Hakubunkan publishing company in 1926. After serving as editor in chief -
Hiromi Kawakami
Kawakami Hiromi (川上弘美 Kawakami Hiromi) born April 1, 1958, is a Japanese writer known for her off-beat fiction.
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Born in Tokyo, Kawakami graduated from Ochanomizu Women's College in 1980. She made her debut as "Yamada Hiromi" in NW-SF No. 16, edited by Yamano Koichi and Yamada Kazuko, in 1980 with the story So-shimoku ("Diptera"), and also helped edit some early issues of NW-SF in the 1970s. She reinvented herself as a writer and wrote her first book, a collection of short stories entitled God (Kamisama) published in 1994. Her novel The Teacher's Briefcase (Sensei no kaban) is a love story between a woman in her thirties and a man in his sixties. She is also known as a literary critic and a provocative essayist.
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Sarah Moss
Sarah Moss is the award-winning author of six novels: Cold Earth, Night Waking, selected for the Fiction Uncovered Award in 2011, Bodies of Light, Signs for Lost Children and The Tidal Zone, all shortlisted for the prestigious Wellcome Prize, and her new book Ghost Wall, out in September 2018.
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She has also written a memoir of her year living in Iceland, Names for the Sea, which was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize in 2013.
Sarah Moss is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick in England. -
Hiro Arikawa
Hiro Arikawa won the tenth annual Dengeki Novel Prize for new writers for Shio no Machi: Wish on My Precious in 2003, and the book was published the following year. It was praised for its love story between a heroine and hero divided by age and social status, and for its depiction of military structures. Although she is a light novelist, her books from her second work onwards have been published as hardbacks alongside more literary works with Arikawa receiving special treatment in this respect from her publisher, MediaWorks. Shio no Machi was also later published in hardback. Her 2006 light novel Toshokan Sensō (The Library War) was named as Hon no Zasshi's number one for entertainment for the first half of 2006, and came fifth in the Honya
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Gu Byeong-mo
Associated Names:
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* 구병모 (Korean)
* Gu Byeong-mo (English)
* คูบยองโม (Thai)
Gu Byeong-mo is a South Korean writer. She made her literary debut in 2009 when her novel Wizard Bakery won the 2nd Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction. Her 2015 short story collection Geugeosi namaneun anigireul received the Today's Writer Award and Hwang Sun-won New Writers' Award. -
Taku Ashibe
Taku is a Japanese mystery writer. He is a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan and one of the representative writers of the new traditionalist movement in Japanese mystery writing.
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Tetsuya Ayukawa
Tetsuya Ayukawa (鮎川 哲也 Ayukawa Tetsuya) was the pen name of a Japanese literary critic and novelist. His real name was Toru Nakagawa. He is noted for his Detective Onitsura Series of mystery stories.
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Kenji Ueda
Kenji Ueda is a Japanese novelist known for blending fantasy with the charm of everyday life. Born in Tokyo in 1969, he made his debut as a writer in 2021 with Teppan (The Iron Griddle), the revised version of a work he wrote in 2019 for the 1st Japan Delicious Fiction Award.
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Mizuki Tsujimura
Associated Names:
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* Mizuki Tsujimura
* 辻村深月 (Japanese)
Tsujimura is an award-winning novelist, she is best known for her mystery and children novels. She studied at Chiba University and won the Naoki Prize in 2012 for Kagi no nai Yume wo Miru (I Saw a Dream Without a Key), and in 2018 she won the Japan Booksellers' Award for her novel Kagami no Kojo (Lonely Castle in the Mirror).
Japanese name 辻村 深月 -
Natsuko Imamura
See: 今村 夏子
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Natsuko Imamura is a Japanese writer. She has been nominated three times for the Akutagawa Prize, and won the prize in 2019. She has also won the Dazai Osamu Prize, the Mishima Yukio Prize, the Kawai Hayao Story Prize, and the Noma Literary New Face Prize. -
Sayaka Murata
Sayaka Murata (in Japanese, 村田 沙耶香) is one of the most exciting up-and-coming writers in Japan today.
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She herself still works part time in a convenience store, which gave her the inspiration to write Convenience Store Woman (Konbini Ningen). She debuted in 2003 with Junyu (Breastfeeding), which won the Gunzo Prize for new writers. In 2009 she won the Noma Prize for New Writers with Gin iro no uta (Silver Song), and in 2013 the Mishima Yukio Prize for Shiro-oro no machi no, sono hone no taion no (Of Bones, of Body Heat, of Whitening City). Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award. Murata has two short stories published in English (both translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori): "Lover on the Breeze" (Ruptured Fiction(s) of the Earthqu -
Michiko Aoyama
Michiko Aoyama was born in 1970 in Aichi Prefecture, Honshu, Japan. After university, she became a reporter for a Japanese newspaper based in Sydney before moving back to Japan to work as a magazine editor in Tokyo. What You are Looking for is in the Library was shortlisted for the Japan Booksellers' Award and became a Japanese bestseller. It is being translated into more than fifteen languages. She lives in Yokohama, Japan.
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青山 美智子 Japanese name
青山美智子 Chinese name -
Yuta Takahashi
Yuta Takahashi is the award-winning author of the eight-book series Meals to Remember at the Chibineko Kitchen as well as several other popular series spanning historical and contemporary fiction. He was born in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, and now lives in Tokyo.
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Sohn Won-Pyung
Associated Names:
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* Sohn Won-Pyung (English)
* 손원평 (Korean)
* ソン・ウォンピョン (Japanese)
* ซนว็อนพย็อง (Thai)
* Сон Вон Пхён (Russia)
Sohn Won-pyung is a film director, screenwriter, and novelist living in South Korea. She earned a BA in social studies and philosophy at Sogang University and film directing at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. She has won several prizes, including the Film Review Award of the 6th Cine21, and the Science Fantasy Writers’ Award for her movie script I Believe in the Moment. She also wrote and directed a number of short films, including Oooh You Make Me Sick and A Two-way Monologue. She made her literary debut in 2017 with this, her first full-length novel, Almond, which won the Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction, followe -
Emi Yagi
Emi Yagi is an editor at a Japanese women’s magazine. She was born in 1988 and lives in Tokyo. Diary of a Void is her first novel; it won the Dazai Osamu Prize, awarded annually to the best debut work of fiction.
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Ai Jiang
Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Nebula, Bram Stoker Award winner, Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist, and an immigrant from Changle, Fujian currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, The Masters Review, among others. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop's 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship.
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Choi Jin-young
Choi Jin-young is one of Korea’s most celebrated authors. Her career started in 2006 when she won the Silcheon Literature Debut Author Award. She has since won many more including the Hankyoreh Literary Award, Shin Dong-yup Literary Prize, Baek Shin-ae Literature Award, Manhae Literary Award and, most recently, the Yi Sang Literary Award.
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Lee Mi-ye
Lee Mi-ye (Korean name: 이미예) was born in Busan in 1990. After graduating from the Busan National University School of Materials Science and Engineering, she worked as a semiconductor engineer at Samsung Electronics. Her debut novel Dollagoot Dream Department Store—published through crowdfunding in 2020—has drawn enthusiastic responses and favorable reviews.
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Sonoko Machida
Sonoko Machida (町田 そのこ) nació en 1980 en Fukuoka (Japón). Comenzó su carrera en 2016 con el cuento Cameroon no aoi sakana (Pez azul en Camerún) por el que recibió el Premio R-18 que otorga la editorial Shinchosha. Publicada en abril de 2020 en Japón, 52 Hertz no kujira tachi (Las ballenas de 52 hercios) es su primera novela y ha obtenido el Premio de los Libreros de Japón en 2021.
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Associated Names:
* Sonoko Machida (English)
* 町田 そのこ (Japanese)
* มาจิดะ โซโนะโกะ (Thai) -
Cheon Seon-ran
Born in 1993, Cheon Seon-ran is a beloved author by the ‘MZ Generation’ (Millennials and Gen Z) of South Korea. A graduate from the department of creative writing in Anyang Arts High School, she holds a master’s degree in creative writing from Dankook University. She dreams of living in a world where humans become the minority in a world of flora and fauna. She is always thinking what the end of the world will look like, and what is happening elsewhere in the universe. One day, she decides to pen her thoughts down in this novel. A Thousand Blues won the 4th Korea Sci-fi Literature Award. She is the author of several novels and short-story collections.
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Rie Qudan
Rie Qudan or Rie Kudan (九段理江) (born September 27, 1990, in Saitama, Japan) is a Japanese novelist. In 2024, Qudan won the 170th Akutagawa Prize for her novel Tōkyō-to Dōjō Tō[b] ("Tokyo Sympathy Tower"). She stated that about 5% of the novel was written by artificial intelligence.
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Mai Ishizawa
Mai Ishizawa was born in 1980 in Sendai City, Japan, and currently lives in Germany. Her debut novel, The Place of Shells, won the Akutagawa Prize.
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Source: New Directions -
Roger Pulvers
Roger Pulvers OAM (born 4 May 1944) is an Australian playwright, theatre director and translator. He has published more than 45 books in English and Japanese, from novels to essays, plays, poetry and translations. He has written prolifically for the stage and has seen his plays produced at major theatres in Japan, Australia and in the U.S.
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Pulvers has also directed widely in Australia and Japan, both in English and Japanese. He has written original scripts for radio documentaries and dramas that have been produced by ABC (Australia), as well as television scripts for NHK (Japan) and screenplays for feature films. - Wikipedia bio -
Toshiyuki Horie
Toshiyuki Horie (堀江 敏幸 Horie Toshiyuki, born January 3, 1964) is a Japanese author and translator.
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Horie was born in Gifu Prefecture, and studied at Waseda University, where he now is a professor of creative writing. He studied for three years at the University of Paris III on a French government scholarship.
Horie, who is also a member of many literary prize selection committees, is a critic and translator of authors including Michel Foucault, Hervé Guibert, Michel Rio, and Jacques Réda.
His books have been translated into French and Korean.
Books (selection)
Kōgai e (郊外へ, "To the Suburbs"), 1995
Shigosen wo motomete (子午線を求めて, "In Search of the Meridian"), 2000
Kakareru te (書かれる手, "The Hand Which is Written"), 2000
1999 Mishima Prize for Oparavan -
Jennifer Oko
Jennifer Oko is a writer, journalist, and filmmaker. Her memoir Lying Together: My Russian Affair was twice named an Editor’s Choice in the New York Times Book Review, which called it “simply riveting.” Her novel Gloss, a satire of morning television news, also received ample praise, with Marie Claire magazine comparing it to Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You and The Chicago Tribune saying it was “a rare treat.” Gloss was optioned by eOne Entertainment to be developed as a television series. Her novel Head Case is a comic mystery about psycho-pharmaceutical trafficking, which she swears is not autobiographical in any way.
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Her latest novel, Just Emilia, is a dark, time-traveling comedy about three women who are trapped in an elevator and forced to gra -
Sahana Vijayakumar
Sahana Vijayakumar is a Kannada author and IT professional. Her work has been Translated into English, Hindi and Marathi
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