山下澄人
Born 1966 · Japan
Akutagawa 2016 (second half) · Winner
Shinsekai
Title translated by AI:“New World”
Sumito Yamashita · 50 when first published
Novel · 163 pages · Coming of age, Autofiction
AI-generated summary:Nineteen-year-old Sumito takes a boat north to join a drama school in a remote valley, where young would-be actors and writers live off the land under a playwright they call the Teacher, amid hard physical work, frictions and his feelings for girls at home and in the valley.
Akutagawa 2013 (first half) · Candidate
Sabaku dansu
Title translated by AI:“Desert Dance”
Sumito Yamashita · 47 when first published
Novella · 127 pages
AI-generated summary:After seeing a desert on television, a man from the snowy north flies to an old American casino town, rents a car and drives into the desert, where he meets himself as a child, his dead parents and the woman from his local bar he never dared invite along.
Akutagawa 2013 (second half) · Candidate
Korubatontori
Sumito Yamashita · 47 when first published
Novella · 107 pages
AI-generated summary:With his father in hospital and his mother killed by a car, a boy lives with his aunt, scarred long ago by oil his mother threw from a window, and on a visit to his father he meets delinquents, a fawn-like girl, a keeper of the moon and his parents as children.
Akutagawa 2012 (first half) · Candidate
Gitchon
Sumito Yamashita · 46 when first published
Novella · 230 pages
AI-generated summary:A man who has become homeless in his forties sees his childhood friend Gitchon and his lonely father pass before his eyes, in a life told out of order from boisterous boyhood to old age.