Tomoka Shibasaki


Tomoka Shibasaki is a Japanese writer from Osaka. She has won the Noma Literary New Face Prize and the Akutagawa Prize, and two of her works have been adapted for film.

Career

Shibasaki was born in Osaka. She graduated from Osaka Prefecture University and held an office job for four years while writing fiction. In 1999 she published her first short story, "Reddo, ierō, orenji, burū". Her first novel, Kyō no dekigoto, was published the next year. In 2003 Kyō no dekigoto was adapted by Isao Yukisada into a film of the same name.
In 2006 Shibasaki won a MEXT Award for New Artists for Sono machi no ima wa, which was then nominated in 2007 for the Akutagawa Prize, but did not win. In 2010 she won the Noma Literary New Face Prize for Nete mo samete mo, a first-person story about a woman who falls in love, loses her boyfriend, then meets a man who looks identical to her disappeared boyfriend but acts completely differently. In 2014, after having her work nominated three more times for the Akutagawa Prize, Shibasaki finally won the 151st Akutagawa Prize for her novel Haru no niwa.
In 2016 the Japan Foundation sponsored her residency in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. The following year, an English translation of her Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Haru no niwa was published by Pushkin Press under the title Spring Garden. In 2018 Ryūsuke Hamaguchi's film adaptation of Nete mo samete mo, titled Asako I & II, entered the competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Recognition