Yuka Ishii (石井 遊佳,Ishii Yūka, born 1963) is aJapanese writer. Her bookHyakunen doro (100 Years Mud) won the 154thAkutagawa Prize and the 49th Shincho Prize for New Writers.

Ishii was born inHirakata, Osaka and lived there during her early school years.^[1][2] She later moved toTokyo, where she graduated fromWaseda University and worked at a variety of part-time jobs, including department store salesperson and snack hostess, while writing stories in her free time.^[3][4] After almost winning a literary prize at age 33 she moved back to her parents' home inOsaka to try writing full-time.^[4] In 2000 Ishii returned toTokyo to pursue graduate study inBuddhism at theUniversity of Tokyo.^[5]

In 2014 Ishii moved toChennai,India, where her husband worked as a Sanskrit language researcher, and she started working as a Japanese language teacher.^[6] She made her literary debut at age 54 with her novelHyakunen doro, about the aftermath of a once-in-a-century flood.^[7] The story was based on her experiences inChennai during the2015 South Indian floods.^[8]Hyakunen doro won the 49th Shincho Prize for New Writers.^[9] It also won the 158thAkutagawa Prize, which she shared withChisako Wakatake.^[10]

Hyakunen doro was published in English by Sydney-based publisherGazebo Books in a translation by Haydn Trowell asThe Mud of a Century.

She has namedGabriel García Márquez andYukio Mishima as two of her favorite authors.^[6]

• 2017: 49th Shincho Prize for New Writers^[6]
• 2018: 158thAkutagawa Prize (2017下)^[11]

• Hyakunen doro,Shinchosha, 2018,ISBN 9784103515319

• 1963 births
• Living people
• 21st-century Japanese novelists
• 21st-century Japanese women writers
• Japanese women novelists
• Akutagawa Prize winners
• University of Tokyo alumni
• Waseda University alumni

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