Riku Onda


Nanae Kumagai, known by her pen name Riku Onda, is a List of [Japanese women writers|Japanese writer]. Onda has won the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, the Japan Booksellers' Award, the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel, the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, and the Naoki Prize. Her work has been adapted for film and television.

Early life and education

Nanae Kumagai was born in 1964 in Aomori, Japan but raised in Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture. She graduated from Waseda University in 1987 and worked in an office for several years, then quit her job to try writing a novel after reading Ken'ichi Sakemi's 1991 novel .

Career

Onda made her literary debut in 1992 with the novel ', which was adapted into the 2000 NHK show ' starring Anne Suzuki and Chiaki Kuriyama. More novels and adaptations followed, including the 1999 novel ', which was adapted into a 2002 film, and the 2000 novel ', which was adapted into a 2001 TBS television series starring Tsubasa Imai.
In 2005 Onda won the 26th Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers and the 2nd Japan Booksellers' Award Grand Prize for her novel ', a story about two half-siblings participating in their school's annual hike. Yoru no pikunikku was adapted into a 2006 film of the same name, directed by Masahiko Nagasawa and starring Mikako Tabe. After being previously nominated for a 58th Mystery Writers of Japan Award for her book Q&A in 2005, Onda won the 59th Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel in 2006 for her murder mystery The Aosawa Murders. The next year she won the 20th Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize for her book ', a complex story about a playwright writing a play about a playwright who is murdered while writing a play. Onda's 2011 novel ' was adapted into the 2012 television drama My Little Nightmare, starring Keiko Kitagawa and shown on Nippon TV. My Little Nightmare: The Movie film sequel, also starring Keiko Kitagawa, premiered in 2014.
In 2017, after having been nominated six different times for the Naoki Prize, Onda won the 156th Naoki Prize for her 2016 book ', a story about an international piano competition. To enrai also won the Japan Booksellers Award Grand Prize in 2017, making it the first instance of a book winning both. After winning the Naoki Award Onda visited her hometown of Sendai and received a special award from Mayor Emiko Okuyama.

Awards

Selected works in Japanese

', Shinchosha, 1992,

Selected works in English

  • "The Big Drawer", translated by Nora Stevens Heath, Speculative Japan 2, 2011
  • "The Warning", translated by Mikhail S. Ignatov, Speculative Japan 3, 2012The Aosawa Murders, translated by Alison Watts, 2020Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight, translated by Alison Watts, 2022Honeybees and Distant Thunder, translated by Philip Gabriel, 2023

Film and other adaptations

Film

Television

Neverland, TBS, 2001My Little Nightmare, Nippon TV, 2012