🏆Akutagawa Prize Winners🏆

Japanese Akutagawa Literary Award Winners that have been translated into English. For the full list of recipients, see the Bungakushinko website or Wikipedia (links in comment).

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created by Avalon

last updated May, 2026

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Comments

avatarPagebound Royalty Badge
Edited

I was unable to find, import & add the following award winners: ⭐ 2005 (134th) - Akiko Itoyama, Waiting in the Offing (In Words Without Borders, April 2007, trans. Charles De Wolf) ⭐ 1997 (117th) - Shun Medoruma, Droplets (In Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, trans. Michael Molasky, University of Hawaii Press, 2000) ⭐ 1987 (98th) - Kiyohiro Miura, He's Leaving Home: My Young Son Becomes a Zen Monk (trans. Jeff Shore, Tuttle, 1996) ⭐ 1981 (85th) - Rie Yoshiyuki, The Little Lady (In Japanese Literature Today, no. 7, trans. Geraldine Harcourt, 1982) ⭐ 1979 (81st) - Yoshiko Shigekane, The Smoke in the Mountain Valley (In Mississippi Review, vol. 39, no. 1/3, trans. John Wilson and Motoko Naruse, 2012) ⭐ 1975 (73rd) - Kyoko Hayashi, Ritual of Death (In Nuke Rebuke: Writers and Artists against Nuclear Energy and Weapons, trans. Kyoko Selden, The Spirit That Moves Us Press, 1984) ⭐ 1965 (53rd) - Setsuko Tsumura, Playthings (In Japan Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, trans. Kyoko Evanhoe and Robert N. Lawson, 1980) ⭐ 1957 (38th) - Takeshi Kaiko, The Naked King (In Japan Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 2, trans. Howard Curtis, 1977) ⭐ 1955 (34th) - Shintaro Ishikawa, Season of Violence (In Season of Violence, trans. John G. Mills, Toshie Takahama, and Ken Tremayne, Tuttle, 1966) ⭐ 1954 (32nd) - Nobuo Kojima, The American School (In Contemporary Japanese Literature, trans. William F. Sibley, Alfred A. Knopf, 1977) ⭐ 1954 (31st) - Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, Sudden Shower (In New Writing in Japan, trans. Geoffrey Bownas, Penguin, 1972) ⭐ 1937 (5th) - Kazuo Ozaki, Rosy Glasses (in Rosy Glasses and Other Stories, trans. Robert Epp, Paul Norbury Publications, 1988)

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Incredible work Avalon, thank you for putting this together! I can't wait to dive in 💜

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NP!! I might have to leave the possibility of doing one of the other awards (like the Yomiuri) for another day because sheesh this took awhile.

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Fantastic list, I've been meaning to get to some of these

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Me too! My curiosity and reading intent for next year partly inspired pulling this list together.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to do this list 💕

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avatarPagebound Royalty Badge
Edited

amazing, thanks Avalon! i was just searching for this exact list after having read (and very much enjoyed) Harlequin Butterfly and The Hole.

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