優雅で感傷的な日本野球

by Genichiro Takahashi

ぼくは野球を知らなかった。ぼくの友だちもパパもママも先生さえも知らなかった。「野球を教わりたいんです」―“日本野球”創世の神髄が時空と国境を越えていま物語られる。一九八五年、阪神タイガースは本当に優勝したのだろうか?第一回三島由紀夫賞受賞の名作。

Paperback Bunko

First published April 1, 1988

About the author

Takahashi was born in Onomichi, Hiroshima prefecture and attended the Economics Department of Yokohama National University without graduating. As a radical student, he was arrested and spent half a year in prison, which caused Takahashi to develop a form of aphasia. As part of his rehabilitation, his doctors encouraged him to start writing. Since April 2005, he has been a professor at the International Department of Meiji Gakuin University. Takahashi's current wife, Tanikawa Naoko and former wife Murai Yuzuki were also both writers.

Takahashi's first novel, Sayonara, Gyangutachi (Sayonara, Gangsters), was published in 1982, and won the Gunzo Literary Award for First Novels. It has been acclaimed by Critics as one of the most important works of postwar Japanese literature. It has been translated into English by Vertical, Inc., Italian and Brazilian Portuguese.

In addition, his Yuga de kansho-teki na Nippon-yakyuu ("Japanese Baseball: Elegant and Sentimental") won the Mishima Yukio Prize in 1988, and his Nihon bungaku seisui shi (The Rise and Fall of Japanese Literature) received the Itoh Sei Literature Award.

In 2012, Sayonara Christopher Robin ("Goodbye, Christopher Robin") won the Tanizaki Prize.

He is also a noted essayist, covering a diverse field of topics ranging from literary criticism to horse-racing.