Inside the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s Biggest Literary Award

The Akutagawa Prize has made the career of many up-and-coming Japanese writers — but it’s not without its controversies.

By Eric Margolis

On June 17, judges awarded the latest Akutagawa Prize for literature to two novels. Bari Sanko, “extreme mountain climbing” (Japanese edition; note: affiliate link) by Matsunaga Sanzo tells a tale about an oddball group of mountaineers. Meanwhile, Sanshouo no Shijuku-nichi, “the 49th day of the salamander (Japanese edition), by Asahina Aki focuses on conjoined sisters who others think are a single person.

There has been no shortage of excitement and controversy around the highly anticipated literary award in recent years. Just this January, in the previous edition of the award, winning novel Tokyo-To Dojo-To by Qudan Rie (Japanese edition) stirred a buzz for its writing process. In a novel that intensely thematizes issues of technology and artificial intelligence, Qudan used ChatGPT to help write passages in the story, passages that she deliberately sets up as written by an AI narrator. The allure and importance of the award means that every winner skyrockets into literary fame — while getting heaps of scrutiny.

So what exactly is the Akutagawa Prize? And how does it shape Japan’s literary landscape?