Mitsuyo Kakuta (, ''Kakuta Mitsuyo'', born 8 March 1967) is a Japanese author born in

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

.IFO
Retrieved 23 May 2016
/ref> She has been engaged in translating into modern Japanese the 11th-century proto-novel ''

The Tale of Genji is a classic work of Japanese literature written by the noblewoman, poet, and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu around the peak of the Heian period, in the early 11th century. It is one of history's first novels, the first by a woman to have wo ...

'' by

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese novelist, Japanese poetry#Age of Nyobo or court ladies, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court in Kyoto, Imperial court in the Heian period. She was best known as the author of ''The Tale of Genji'', widely considered t ...

(紫式部).

Career

Mitsuyo Kakuta made her debut while still a student at

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

's Faculty of Literature, with ''Kōfuku na yūgi'' (A Blissful Pastime). It won her the Kaien Prize for New Writers in 1990. After producing two well-received novels in 2002, ''Ekonomikaru paresu'' (Economical Palace) and ''Kūchū teien'' (Hanging Garden), she went on to win the Noma Literary New Face Prize and the

Naoki Prize The Naoki Prize, officially , is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. It was created in 1935 by Kikuchi Kan, then editor of the ''Bungeishunjū'' magazine, and named in memory of novelist Naoki Sanjugo. Sponsored by the Society for ...

for ''Woman on the Other Shore'' in 2004. ''Hanging Garden'' was adapted into a film by Toshiaki Toyoda in 2005. '' The Eighth Day'', translated into English in 2010, received the 2007 Chūō Kōron Literary Prize and has been made into a television drama series and a film. Both her 2012 books – her novel ''Kami no tsuki'' and her short-story volume ''Kanata no ko'' (The Children Beyond) – were prizewinners. Altogether she has written over 80 works of fiction.

Current events

Mitsuyo Kakuta is married to the fellow writer Takami Itō. She stated in an interview in October 2015 that she is translating the 11th-century classic ''

'' into modern Japanese and this was likely to take her three years. The first two volumes of the adaptation have now been published. In the same interview she mentioned Shuichi Yoshida, Yōko Ogawa and Kaori Ekuni as contemporary Japanese writers whom she could recommend. She is a member of Red Circle Authors, a curated group of contemporary Japanese authors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kakuta, Mitsuyo Japanese translators Japanese women novelists Waseda University alumni 1967 births Living people Naoki Prize winners