Nobori Kiuchi (木内 昇, Kiuchi Nobori) is a Japanese writer of historical fiction. She has won the Shibata Renzaburo Prize, the Chūōkōron Literary Prize, and the Naoki Prize.
Early life
Kiuchi was born in 1967 in Tokyo, Japan. She attended Chuo University, and upon graduation took a publishing job editing various magazines, including the Japanese version of the American teen magazine Sassy.[1] She started her own magazine, then quit the publishing job to work as a freelance writer and editor.[2][3]
Writing career
Her debut novel Shinsengumi bakumatsu no seiran (新選組幕末の青嵐, Shinsengumi: The Winds of Revolution), set in Kyoto in the late Edo period, was published in 2004.[1] Four years later her book Myōgadani no neko (茗荷谷の猫, A Cat in Myõgodani), a collection of linked stories taking place in Tokyo at different times from the Edo period to the Shōwa period, was published.[4] At the 2nd Waseda UniversityTsubouchi Shōyō Prize ceremony Yoko Tawada received the Grand Prize, but Kiuchi received the Encouragement Prize for Myōgadani no neko.[5][6] The next year Kiuchi won the 144th Naoki Prize for her historical novel Hyōsa no utau (漂砂のうたう, Song of Drifting Sands), a story about a samurai and a courtesan in a Nezu red-light district brothel just after the Meiji Restoration.[7] The committee specifically praised Kiuchi's attention to historical detail.[8] Kiuchi won the award on her first nomination, in contrast to co-winner Shūsuke Michio, a five-time Naoki Prize nominee.[3][9]
Kiuchi's first novel after winning the Naoki Prize was her 2011 book Warai sannen naki mitsuki (笑い三年, 泣き三月, Three Years of Laughing, Three Months of Crying), a story set in Asakusa immediately after the end of World War II.[10] Her novel Kushihikichimori (櫛挽道守, The Way of the Comb Crafter), about a family of Yabuhara comb crafters at the end of the Edo period, was published in 2013.[11] The next year Kushihikichimori won Kiuchi the 27th Shibata Renzaburo Prize for established writers of genre fiction, the 9th Chūōkōron Literary Prize, and the 8th Shinran Prize, which is awarded to a work of fiction deeply rooted in Japanese spiritual culture.[12][13][14] Her short story collection Yokomachi yowa (よこまち余話) was published by Chuokoron-Shinsha in 2016.[15] Her book Kyūdō renren (球道恋々) was a finalist for the 34th Oda Sakunosuke Prize in 2017.[16]
Recognition
2009 2nd Waseda University Tsubouchi Shōyō Encouragement Prize[5]
^"中卒フリーター親子２代で逮捕歴...芥川賞作家の素顔". zakzak (in Japanese). Sankei Digital. January 18, 2011. Archived from the original on August 8, 2018. Retrieved August 5, 2018.
