An introduction to Japan’s Akutagawa Prize for rising authors

The Akutagawa Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in Japanese literature. It is given to ‘new or rising’ authors writing in Japanese. The award is presented to two works each year – usually. Some years there’s only one winner; some years there are three; some years they don’t award a prize at all; some years they give out four. (This is how things ought to be: predictable and unpredictable, orderly and disorderly – and anyone who complains ought to be praised and lambasted, celebrated and condemned, simultaneously, one after the other!)

This article is a list of some winners of the Akutagawa Prize. There are only five authors here. I’ve only included writers I’m familiar with and (mostly) books I’ve read. All but one of the books I read first and then learned that the book (or the author) were past Akutagawa winners. Based on the quality of the stories, I can only conclude that these awards people seem to know what they are doing.

Just like all literary awards, the Akutagawa Prize isn’t really a ‘best of’ list for writing in that language; if you look at the complete list of winners, you’ll notice some conspicuous names missing. For example, the award had the audacity to not exist a thousand years ago when Sei Shonagon wrote The Pillow Book, which most departed and pre-departed people agree is the best stuff humanity has come up with so far. (The link above is to the fantastic translation by Meredith McKinney.)

Millenial snubs aside, I’ve found some absolute jewels that won Akutagawa Prizes. I hope you some jewels as well. (Please note that I remember everything imperfectly, so all the thoughts that follow are largely comments on the hazy shape that each book has left in my memory rather than accurate book reviews.)

Sayaka Murata (2016): Convenience Store Woman (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

The blurbs on the front cover of my copy of this book talk about how funny it is. This is not a funny book. This is the most massive mismatch between blurbs and books I’ve ever encountered. The emotional experience of Convenience Store Woman is profound. This book barely contains a desperation, a restlessness, that perfectly articulated what I was feeling during Covid in Hong Kong. It’s a great read if you are trying to portray the alienating, baffling, existential oppression that strains desperately against the straitjackets of mundane, banal, suburban-set lives.

Ryu Murakami (1976): Almost Transparent Blue (translated by Nancy Andrew)

This book will stick with you. It’s disturbing. (I read it in one sitting in the Asia Pacific Resource Center in the Rosemead Library in Los Angeles. The APRC is one of the absolute gems of the LA county library system.) Almost Transparent Blue is beauty in brokenness. Absolutely debauched American soldiers and locals have drug-fueled sex parties. They use each other and hurt each other and lie and experience what, in our more frayed moments, we might call ‘love’. The emptiness, the oppression, the terrible mocking laughter oppresses – but this dark haze gives way to a scene late in the book where the protagonist glimpses, in this fallen, cracked, barely-bound world, a beauty that is gentle, light, and – if not hopeful, then at least present.

Hiroko Oyamada (2013): The Hole (translated by David Boyd)

The Hole is what I call a wunderworld story, but Oyamada does something special: she transforms mundane, humdrum, daily ‘real life’ – walks around the neighborhood, chats with neighbours, and, most chillingly, a daytime visit to a 7-11 – into something eerie and otherworldly. (I’m working on a full article about how she goes Elsewhere without ever leaving ‘here’.) 

Shusaku Endo (1955): White Man, Yellow Man (translated by Teruyo Shimizu)

This is the only book on this list I haven’t read – but I’ve read ten of his other books and I visited his museum on my honeymoon, so I couldn’t not mention him. He’s shaped my life as a writer – and in general – in ways so profound that I hope to thank him someday, either in a) heaven or b) a dream where we are both some sort of time-ghosts. Endo is a Japanese Catholic, and his complex relationship with faith informs most of his stories. The Samurai, Wonderful Fool, and, of course, Silence are great places to start with his work. 

Naoki Matayoshi (2015): Spark (translated by Alison Watts)

This novel introduced me to the world of comedy in Japan. Spark focuses on manzai, which is a type of comedy where two comics play off each other, one the straight and one the fool. I found Spark – and particularly the manzai comedy it explores – to be excellent inspiration when writing comedic dialogue between two characters in a novel. For whatever reason, imagining comedic duo scenes as manzai helped something click in my mind. Spark is funny, but it isn’t only funny. Comedy seems to draw broken people, and Spark shows how comedy can patch some people up while breaking others further. 

Other notable authors who have won the Akutagawa Prize: 

I’ve read enough of the authors below to feel confident recommending them – though I haven’t read enough of them to feel confident blurbing them above. 

• Yoko Ogawa (1990), known for The Memory Police

• Yoko Tawada (1992), known for The Emissary; she writes in German as well
• Hiromi Kawakami (1996), known for Strange Weather in Tokyo
• Yu Miri (1996), known for Tokyo Ueno Station, whose UK cover is stunning
• Mieko Kawakami (2007), known for Breasts & Eggs, which has a fantastic powder-pink cover
• Maki Kashimada (2012), known for Touring the Land of the Dead, whose cover is a fascinating red-magenta color