Japanese Literary Awards

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Yamamoto Shugoro Award やまもとしゅうごろうしょう

Edition 36 (2023)

Popular literatureHistorical fiction

Winners

5 people
Sayako Nagai ながい さやこ award

On a snowy night, a revenge killing is carried out behind a theater district playhouse. As each witness speaks, the story's familiar outline shifts, and the truth slowly comes into focus.

Multiple voices unravel the memory of a revenge killing in a theater district.

272 pages
revengetheater districtensemble dramahuman warmth
Akinari Asakura あさくら あきなり nominee

A man is framed as a murderer on social media and, within hours, finds himself surrounded by enemies. As he runs, he tries to uncover who set him up in this thriller about mob psychology and selective seeing online.

A man who suddenly gains countless enemies runs after the truth and the outline of his own life.

368 pages
social media outragefalse accusationflightmob psychology
Akira Ogido おぎどう あきら nominee

In a former dictatorship whose history has been erased, the protagonist investigates a mysterious illness among children and confronts the violence and ruptures hidden beneath the utopia. A near-future espionage novel about bioethics and national memory.

Even in the utopia of an erased nation, a darkness remains.

416 pages
near futurebioethicsespionagenational memory
Keiya Iwai いわい けいや nominee

The climbs toward Denali intertwine with two women's struggle against rising seas in their homeland, asking what the act of summiting really means. A mountain novel where truth, memory, friendship, and honor collide.

The closer they move toward the white summit, the sharper the outline of what has been lost becomes.

320 pages
mountain novelfriendshipclimate crisistruth
Toriko Yoshikawa よしかわ とりこ nominee

Moving backward in ten-year jumps from 2029 to 1979, the secrets hidden inside one family are gradually revealed. Beneath its easy flow, this linked novel quietly rearranges family history and individual choices.

As the fragments of the family are linked together, the past begins to look completely different.

320 pages
familylinked storiessecretstime travel through memory