Noma Literary Award
のまぶんげいしょう
A literary award for novels, drama, criticism, and related works in pure literature
- Established
- 1941
- Organizer
- Noma Cultural Foundation
- Category
- Pure Literature
- Selection Method
- Selection
- Target
- Professional
- Frequency
- 1 per year
- Announcement Period
- around November
- Status
- Active
Description
One of the Noma Awards sponsored by the Noma Cultural Foundation. Established in accordance with the wishes of Kiyoshi Noma, Kodansha's first president, it honors outstanding novels, drama, criticism, and related works newly published between September 1 of the previous year and August 31 of the award year. Founded in 1941, it resumed in 1953 after a postwar interruption.
Prize
- Main Prize
- Award plaque
- Cash Prize
- 3,000,000 JPY
- Before the 42nd edition, the prize money was 2 million yen
Selection
Selection Process
| Stage | Judges | Pass Rate | Announcement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selection Committee | Selection Committee Members | — | — |
Related Awards
- Noma Literary Prize for New Writers
- Noma Children's Literary Award
- Noma Publishing Culture Award
Official Resources
https://www.kodansha.co.jp/awards/noma/bPast Winners
World 99 is a two-volume dystopian novel centered on Sorako Kisaragi, a woman without a fixed personality who survives by resonating with others and reshaping herself for each community. As the seemingly cute Pyokorun begins to alter the structure of society, the novel follows Sorako's life through unsettling questions of discrimination, exploitation, sexuality, family, memory, and adaptation.
As Sorako moves between worlds by changing the self she presents, Pyokorun shifts from a beloved creature into a force that rewrites human society itself.
An animal researcher known only as "I" finds himself standing in a strange line whose front and end cannot be seen. Through people who mistrust, envy, and try to overtake one another, the novel turns the suffocating pressure of competition and comparison in contemporary society into an unsettling allegory.
In a line that seems to stretch without end, the novel asks why people keep standing there and what they cannot escape.
Asami, a novelist who spent part of her childhood in California, reunites in Tokyo with Ann, who has lived through divorce and surgery, and Kazu, a lyricist, after roughly half a century. As the three meet, drink, and talk, memory, aging, and feelings that cannot be neatly named as either love or friendship begin to mingle, quietly illuminating the time accumulated in their lives.
Memories and love loosened by time quietly stir a reunion in later life.