Factbook

A Dynamic Compendium of Interesting Japanese Literary and Publishing Facts

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Literary Awards

Only one author, Yoriko Shono, has won Japan’s Triple Crown of literary prizes to date

[UPDATED: 4-17-2019]

The so-called Triple Crown of Japanese literary prizes for new authors consists of the Akutagawa Prize, the Yukio Mishima Prize and the Noma Prize.

Yoriko Shono, author of Time Slip Kombinat, who describes her style of writing as ‘avant-pop’, is the only author to-date to have achieved the Triple Crown by being awarded all three prizes.

A common theme of her work is ‘cyborg-identity’ a narrative that alongside more traditional robot fiction has a long history in Japan and has been used in cyborg feminists novels, and subversive fiction to, for example, ridicule and question society.

Only one author, Yoriko Shono, has won Japan’s Triple Crown of literary prizes to date Posted March 23rd, 2017 by Richard Nathan

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Factbook

Only one author, Yoriko Shono, has won Japan’s Triple Crown of literary prizes to date

Writing about ‘The Lost’ or ‘Old and New’ or Japan ‘Off-The-Beaten-Track’ in English is an enduring publishing trend that goes back to at least 1878[UPDATED: 6-17-2024]

‘The Life of an Amorous Man’ written by a 17th-century Japanese poet spawned the genre now known as ‘Floating World’ publishing[UPDATED: 1-16-2024]

A poem about a frog written in 1686 by Japan’s most famous poet is Japan’s best known poem[UPDATED: 10-2-2023]

In the 1960s a member of the Japanese Imperial Family started moonlighting as a science fiction author[UPDATED: 8-22-2023]

Writing about the plight of women in Japan is not a new trend. In the 1870s visitors to Japan were already pontificating on the topic in print[UPDATED: 8-4-2023]

New international standards for measuring time, weights and measures encouraged some to call for Japan to adopt a Westernised writing system abandoning traditional alphabets[UPDATED: 7-7-2023]

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