Published as a winning short story for the Bungei Prize, it quietly depicts the sense of confinement and the strain of wanting to get out that the word ‘prisoner’ evokes. The outline of oppression gradually emerges through the temperature of the language.

A trapped voice remains in the form of a quiet song.

Published as a runner-up for the Bungei Prize, this short piece evokes the aimlessness and sense of being separated from the flock suggested by the title ‘Stray Sheep.’ A quiet unease remains as a thin margin of blank space.

The unease of a stray sheep spreads slowly.

Set in Tokyo in 1980, the novel follows Yuri, who studies at university while also working as a model, and captures the sensibility of a young generation sustained by affluence along with the uncertainty that lies beyond it. It is a sharply observed portrait of consumer society.

Within the outline of an affluent everyday life, an uncertain future is already gathering.