Japanese Literary Awards

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Kodansha Essay Award こうだんしゃエッセイしょう

Edition 33 (2017)

EssayLiterary award

Winners

2 people
Kyoko Koizumi こいずみ きょうこ award

In this essay collection, Kyoko Koizumi moves between Harajuku and her own memories, writing about family, love, cats, people she has met, life, and death. Beyond her years as an idol, the book quietly reveals a personal history layered onto a changing neighborhood.

Beginning from a yellow apartment building in Harajuku, the memories of a neighborhood intersect with Koizumi's own time.

168 pages
Harajukumemoryfamilycatsentertainment careeressays
Homura Hiroshi ほむら ひろし award

This essay collection captures small unease and odd dislocations hidden in everyday life through Hiroshi Homura's sharp eye and dry humor. Children, dogs, family habits, and other people's household rules become moments when ordinary life suddenly looks strange.

The familiar everyday world turns uncanny the moment it is viewed from a slightly different angle.

248 pages
everyday uneaseanxiety and humorpersonal observationa contemporary tanka sensibility