Keiichiro Hirano(Author)

Born in 1975 in Gamagori, Aichi Prefecture, and raised in Kitakyushu, he graduated from the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University. In 1999, as a university student, he won the 120th Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan’s most prestigious literary awards, for Eclipse, published in the literary magazine Shincho. The work became a bestseller, selling 400,000 copies.

Since then, he has published numerous works, each marked by a distinct and evolving style. His works have been translated into multiple languages and published worldwide, with A MAN and At the End of the Matinee among the most notable in English.

In 2004, he spent a year in Paris as a cultural exchange envoy for Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs. He writes criticism across a wide range of genres and has deep knowledge of art and music. From 2009 to 2016, he wrote the “Art Review” column for the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

In 2014, as a guest curator at the National Museum of Western Art, he organized the exhibition “A Call from the Non-Ordinary: Western Masterpieces Selected by Keiichiro Hirano.” That same year, he was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He also actively collaborates with artists across various genres.

His works have been adapted for film and television, including the film At the End of the Matinee (2019), based on the novel which has sold over 600,000 copies; the TV drama series Fill in the Blanks (2022); the film A MAN (2022); and the film Heart of Hearts (2024).

His other works include the novels Farewell to the Departed, Breach, Dawn, and Mount Fuji, as well as the essays What is the “I”?: From Individual to Dividual, A Thinking Reed, What Does “Kakkoii” Mean?, On the Death Penalty, and Theory on Yukio Mishima.

He currently resides in New York.

[Awards]
・120th Akutagawa Prize for Eclipse（Nisshoku）(1999)
・59th Education, Science and Technology Ministers Art Encouragement Prize for New Writers for Breach（Kekkai） (2009)
・19th Prix Deux Magots Bunkamura for Dawn (2009)
・ the Watanabe Junichi Literary Prize for At the End of the Matinee（2017）
・ the Yomiuri Prize for Literature for A MAN（2019）
・ the Kobayashi Hideo Prize for Theory on Yukio Mishima（2023）

 

Keiichiro Hirano According to Keiichiro Hirano: The author looks back on twenty years as a novelist to analyze his own body of work.