Erika Kobayashi

Erika Kobayashi is a novelist and visual artist based in Tokyo. History, memory, and radiation play an important role in her work. In her novels, Kobayashi traces the history of radiation via the lives of ordinary people over generations—particularly generations of women: mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters. Through her writing she wants to make the invisible visible, the unseen seen. Her novel Madame Curie to chōshoku o (Breakfast with Madame Curie), published in 2014 by Shueisha, was shortlisted for both the Mishima and the Akutagawa Prize. Her latest novel, the literary thriller Trinity, Trinity, Trinity (2019), about a terrorist attack on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics examines the intertwined histories of the Olympics, fascism, and nuclear technologies. “Precious Stones” was included in the collection Kanojo wa kagami no naka o nozokikomu (She looks into the mirror), published by Shueshia in 2017. (Photo by Mie Morimoto)