Hiromi Kawakami
| Hiromi Kawakami | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 1, 1958 Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Period | 1990–present |
| Notable works | Tread on a Snake, The Briefcase/Strange Weather in Tokyo |
| Notable awards |
Akutagawa Prize 1996 |
Kawakami Hiromi (川上 弘美 Kawakami Hiromi) born April 1, 1958, is a Japanese writer known for her off-beat fiction.
Biography
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 2001 novel Sensei no kaban (The Briefcase/Strange Weather in Tokyo) is a love story between a woman in her thirties and a man in his seventies. She is also known as a literary critic and a provocative essayist.
Awards and honors
- 1996 Akutagawa Prize for Hebi wo fumu (Tread on a Snake)
- 2000 Itō Sei Literature Prize for Oboreru
- 2000 Woman Writer's Prize for Oboreru
- 2001 Tanizaki Prize for Sensei no kaban
- 2007 Honored by the Ministry of Education for her novel Manazuru
- 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist for The Briefcase[1]
- 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist for Strange Weather in Tokyo (Japanese; trans. Allison Markin Powell)[2]
Selected works
- Kamisama (God), 1994
A partial English translation of this story is included in Read Real Japanese Fiction, a compilation of Japanese short stories edited by Michael Emmerich, published in 2008.
- Hebi wo fumu (蛇を踏む, Tread on a Snake), 1996
- Oboreru (Drowning), 2000
- Sensei no kaban, 2001; the same translation published under two different titles: The Briefcase and Strange Weather in Tokyo, 2012
- Furudogu Nakano Shoten (The Nakano Thrift Store), 2005
- Manazuru (真鶴), 2006
- Pasuta Mashiin Yuurei (Pasta Machine Ghosts), 2010
References
- ↑ Alison Flood (9 January 2013). "Man Asian literary prize shortlist stages Booker re-match". The Guardian. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
- ↑ Alison Flood (8 April 2014). "Knausgaard heads Independent foreign fiction prize shortlist". The Guardian. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
External links
- http://www.parisreview.com/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5482
- http://thegodofbears.blogspot.com/2008/10/god-of-bears.html
- Hiromi Kawakami at J'Lit Books from Japan (English)
- Synopsis of Manazuru at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) (English)
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