Tokyo, Oct. 14 (Jiji Press)–Senji Kuroi, a prominent writer of the “introverted generation” in Japan, died of pneumonia on Monday. He was 94. Kuroi, whose real name was Shunjiro Osabe, published “Aoi Kojo” in 1958 while working for Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., now Subaru Corp., after graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1955. In 1970, Kuroi won the Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists for “Jikan,” a novel examining the meaning of work and life by depicting people in a company. He then became a full-time writer. While staying away from campus activism at that time, Kuroi and other introverted generation writers intricately described the inner lives of modern people. Kuroi received the Tanizaki Prize in 1984 for “Gunsei,” the Yomiuri Prize for Literature in 1995 for “Curtain Call,” the Mainichi Art Award in 2001 for “Hane to Tsubasa” and the Noma Literary Prize in 2006 for “Ichinichi Yume no Saku.” Kuroi was on the Akutagawa Prize selection committee from 1987 to 2012. He also served as president of the Japan Writers’ Association from 2002 to 2006 and as academy director of the Japan Art Academy from 2014 to 2020. He was granted the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, in 2008 and was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 2014. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
