Time and history win big at most prestigious Japanese book awards

Makoto Toriyama’s “Toki no Ie” (“The House of Time”) and Ushio Hatakeyama’s “Sakebi” (“Scream”) are the winners of the 174th Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan’s most prestigious literary awards, given for emerging authors of literary fiction.

Toriyama was born in 1992 in Hyogo Prefecture. “Toki no Ie,” about three generations of residents who pass through one house, was first published in Gunzo magazine and received the 47th Noma Literary Newcomer Award.

To write the story, Toriyama drew on his experiences as a working architect and based the central house on the home he designed with his wife, also an architect, for their family.