Kazumi Saeki

Kazumi is Saeki's writer pseudonym. He chose it because the second character means "wheat" and Saeki is a fan of van Gogh's wheat fields; here: wheat field with crows

Kazumi Saeki ( Japanese 佐伯 一 麦 , Saeki Kazumi ; born July 21, 1959 , Sendai ) is a Japanese writer.

Life

Kazumi was born in Sendai and attended Sendai First High School there. After graduating from high school, he moved to Tokyo and earned his living working for weekly newspapers and also as an electrician. In 1984 he received the Kaien Literature Prize for Debutants for his debut Ki o tsugu . With his next work Short Circuit ( シ ョ ー ト ・ サ ー キ ッ ト , dt. Kurzschluss), which appeared in 1990 and which is based on his experience as an electrician, he won the Noma literature prize for debutants . He got married, lived with his wife in Tokyo for another ten years and then moved back to his hometown Sendai.

In 1996 he was awarded the Kiyama Shōhei Literature Prize for Tōki yama ni hi wa ochite ( 遠 き 山 に 日 は 落 ち て ), in which he lived with his wife in a small town in the Tōhoku region . Kazumi experienced the Tōhoku earthquake and the subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011, 15 kilometers from Sendai. A short story, A Novelist's Reflections on the Japanese Earthquake , was translated into English and a field report was published in March 2011 in the New York Times .

Prizes and awards

• 1984 Kaien literature prize for debutants
• 1990 Noma literature prize for debutants
• 1991 Mishima Prize for A rūsu boi ( ア ・ ル ー ス ・ ボ ー イ , A Loose Boy)
• 1997 Kiyama Shōhei Literature Prize
• 2004 Osaragi Jirō Prize for Tettō kazoku ( 鉄 塔 家族 )
• 2007 Noma Literature Prize for Noruge ( ノ ル ゲ )
• 2014 Itō-Sei Literature Prize for Watarase ( 渡 良 瀬 )

Works (selection)

• Kazumi Saeki: A Novelist's Reflections on the Japanese Earthquake . In: Speakeasy . March 11, 2012 ( wsj.com [accessed July 17, 2012] Japanese: Hiyoriyama . Translated by Jeffrey Hunter).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 佐伯 一 麦 . In: デ ジ タ ル 版 日本人 名 大 辞典 + Plus at kotobank.jp. Retrieved July 17, 2012 (Japanese). 
2. ↑ Kazumi Saeki. J'Lit - Books from Japan, accessed July 17, 2012 . 

Web links

• Kazumi Saeki: In Japan, No Time Yet for Grief . In: The New York Times . March 15, 2011, p. 31 (the print version dated March 16) ( nytimes.com [accessed July 17, 2012]).
• Kazumi Saeki, Makoto Inari, Nobuo Shirai: 私 の 広 瀬 川 イ ン タ ビ ュ ー . Hirosegawa homepage, January 22, 2005, accessed July 17, 2012 (Japanese). 
• 大 震災 仙台 の 作家 ・ 佐伯 一 麦 さ ん に 聞 く . asahi.com, April 14, 2011,accessed June 4, 2012(Japanese).