is a Japanese writer. He has won the Noma Literary New Face Prize, the

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 The ...

, and the

Tanizaki Prize The Tanizaki Prize (谷崎潤一郎賞 ''Tanizaki Jun'ichirō Shō''), named in honor of the Japanese novelist Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, is one of Japan's most sought-after literary awards. It was established in 1965 by the publishing company Chūō K� ...

Biography

Hosaka was born in

Yamanashi prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 817,192 (1 January 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the no ...

and received his undergraduate education at

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

with a major in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

and economics. After graduating he worked for Seibu Culture Centers, holding popular educational workshops on

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

. During this period (1990) he published his first book, ''Plainsong''. He left Seibu in 1993 to devote his efforts to writing full-time, with the assistance of fellow writer Nobuo Kojima. Hosaka writes about ordinary people in ordinary life situations. His work has been compared with the movies of noted director

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in t ...

. A common theme in his writing is the presence of a cat in the lives of his characters.

Recognition

*1993 15th Noma Literary New Face Prize for ''Kusa no ue no choshoku'' (“Breakfast on the Grasses”) *1995 113th

(1995上) for ''Kono hito no iki'' (“The Area of the Person”) *1997 33rd

for ''Kisetsu no kioku '' (Memories of Seasons)

References

External links

Official home page

at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) Japanese writers 1956 births Living people People from Yamanashi Prefecture Waseda University alumni Akutagawa Prize winners {{Japan-writer-stub