is a noted Japanese professor, poet, and novelist.

Life

Matsuura was born in Tokyo. In 1981 he obtained his Ph.D. in French literature from the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle, and 1982 became an assistant professor in the French Department at the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

where he is now a professor of culture and representation. He was supported by a 1997–98

Japan Foundation The is a Japanese foundation that spreads Japanese culture around the world. Based in Tokyo, it was established in 1972 by an Act of the National Diet as a special legal entity to undertake international dissemination of Japanese culture. I ...

Fellowship at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Awards

Matsuura has received a number of awards for his literary work, including a 2000

Akutagawa Prize The is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner receives from the media, it is, along with the Naoki Prize, one of Japan's most sought after literary prizes. History Th ...

for ''Hana kutashi'' (A Spoiling Rain), and the 2004

Yomiuri Prize The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shimbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone. Award categories For the first two years, ...

for ''Hantō'' (The Peninsula). His serialized novel '' Kawa no Hikari'' (River's Light) has been adapted into an anime television special.

Works in English translation

Novel *''Triangle'' (original title: ''Tomoe''), trans. David Karashima (

Dalkey Archive Press Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...

, 2014)

Selected academic works

* "A Comparative Study on Images of 'Modernity'", The Japan Foundation Newsletter XXVI/No. 1, pages 7–8.
Electronic Realism
translated by Indra Levy.

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120421003819/http://repre.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/staff/matsuura_hisaki/ University of Tokyo: Hisaki Matsuura page
Hisaki Matsuura
at J'Lit Books from Japan

at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) * Japanese Wikipedia article
Hisaki Matsuura and Moyez Vassanji Interviews
* Dennitza Gabrakova, "The Semi-space of Life and the Illusion of Depth - Matsuura Hisaki's Peninsula", Japanese Studies, Volume 29, Issue 3 December 2009, pages 367–379.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matsuura, Hisaki 1954 births 20th-century Japanese novelists 21st-century Japanese novelists 21st-century Japanese poets 20th-century Japanese poets Living people Academic staff of the University of Tokyo University of Tokyo alumni Akutagawa Prize winners Yukio Mishima Prize winners Yomiuri Prize winners International Writing Program alumni