Haneko Takayama (高山 羽根子,Takayama Haneko; born 1975) is aJapanese writer. She has won theAkutagawa Prize and the Fumiko Hayashi Literary Prize, and her work has been nominated for theNihon SF Taisho Award.

Haneko Takayama was born in 1975 inToyama, Japan, and graduated fromTama Art University. She made her literary debut with her science fiction storyUdon, Kitsune-tsuki no (うどんキツネつきの), which received the first honorable mention at the inauguralSogen SF Short Story Prize awards in 2010 and was then published in an anthology of the prize nominees.^[1]Udon, Kitsune-tsuki no was later reprinted as the title story of a 2014 collection of Takayama's short stories, which was a finalist for the 36thNihon SF Taisho Award.^[2]

Two years later Takayama received the 2ndFumiko Hayashi Literary Prize forThe Island on the Side of the Sun (太陽の側の島), a story of a woman and a soldier during wartime told in a series of fictional diary entries and letters. In addition to ¥1 million in cash, the prize included publication of the story in the mid-April issue ofFujin Kōron.^[3]

In 2018 her short story collectionObjectum (オブジェクタム,Obujekutamu), with a title story about a man visiting his hometown and dealing with his memories, was published byAsahi Shimbun.^[4] The collection also included the previously published storyThe Island on the Side of the Sun.^[5] Reviewer Tetsuo Machiguchi, writing in book review journalDokushojin, praised Takayama as an "extraordinary writer" who "crosses genre boundaries".^[6]Objectum was subsequently named as a finalist for the 39thNihon SF Taisho Award.^[7]

Later that year her storyIta basho (居た場所, Where I was) was published inBungei, with critic Atsushi Sasaki of theNishinippon Shimbun calling it an "unmistakable masterpiece".^[8]Ita basho was subsequently nominated for the 160thAkutagawa Prize.^[9] It survived the first round of selection committee voting, with committee members praising the atmosphere created in the book, but the committee ultimately concluded that some of the fantasy elements were unsatisfying, and awarded the prize to two other authors.^[10] Six months later, Takayama's storyCome Gather Round, People (カム・ギャザー・ラウンド・ピープル,Kamu gyazā raundo pīpuru), published in the May issue ofSubaru, was nominated for the 161st Akutagawa Prize.^[11]

Takayama won the 163rd Akutagawa Prize for her workShuri no uma (首里の馬, A Horse from Shuri), a novel inspired by her travels toOkinawa.^[12]Shuri no uma follows a museum archivist in Okinawa and her response to seeing a type of horse native to the island.^[13] The novel was also nominated for theYukio Mishima Prize.^[14]

• 2016: 2nd Fumiko Hayashi Literary Prize^[15]
• 2020: 163rd Akutagawa Prize^[12]

• Udon, Kitsune-tsuki no (うどんキツネつきの), Tōkyō Sōgensha, 2014,ISBN 9784488018191
• Objectum (オブジェクタム,Obujekutamu),Asahi Shimbun, 2018,ISBN 9784022515643
• Shuri no uma (首里の馬),Shinchosha, 2020,ISBN 9784103533818

• Living people
• 1975 births
• 21st-century Japanese novelists
• 21st-century Japanese women writers
• Japanese women novelists
• Japanese science fiction writers
• Akutagawa Prize winners

• CS1 Japanese-language sources (ja)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Japanese-language text