Japanese Literary Awards

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Bungei Award ぶんげいしょう

Edition 32 (1995)

Medium-length novelFull-length novel

Winners

3 people
Takami Ito いとう たかみ award

A coming-of-age novel about a transfer student who faces loneliness in a hostile classroom and a makeshift family, and begins to endure it through a connection with a girl he meets on a telephone dating line.

A single phone call becomes the thread that slowly changes a boy’s world.

197 pages
lonelinessadolescencetelephone dating linefamily and school
池内広明 いけうち ひろあき excellent work

A mystery about a protagonist who loses the memory of a sudden assault and must confront the blank space in his mind amid the testimony of witnesses.

Somewhere inside the missing memory, someone keeps knocking quietly at the door.

173 pages
memory lossassaultuneasepsychological mystery
金真須美 かねます すみ excellent work

A story about a sister and brother searching for a way to rebuild themselves after tragedy. Its quiet voice carries a sense of renewal.

Beyond the tragedy, the two keep searching for a way to live again.

174 pages
sibling relationshiptragedyrenewal