高山羽根子
Born 1975 · Japan
Akutagawa 2020 (first half) · Winner
Shuri no uma
Title translated by AI:“The Horse of Shuri”
Haneko Takayama · 45 when first published
Novel · 158 pages · Nature
AI-generated summary:Minako helps archive a tiny, ageing local museum in Okinawa and also works online as a 'question reader', quizzing isolated workers in remote corners of the world, until a Miyako pony strays into her world on a stormy night.
Akutagawa 2019 (first half) · Candidate
Kamu gyazā raundo pīpuru
Title translated by AI:“Come Gather Round People”
Haneko Takayama · 44 when first published
Novella · 108 pages
AI-generated summary:A woman recalls her grandmother's lovely back, a stranger who licked her stomach as she walked back from school and Nishida, a tedious friend from her teens; years later someone she meets during a downpour shows her footage of Nishida, wearing a dress, heading a protest march.
Akutagawa 2018 (second half) · Candidate
Ita basho
Title translated by AI:“The Place Where We Were”
Haneko Takayama · 43 when first published
Novella · 163 pages · Love, Migration
AI-generated summary:A man and his wife Xiaocui, who first came to Japan as a trainee, set off together, map in hand, for a seaside town that the map does not show.