Erika Kobayashi

Erika Kobayashi (小林エリカ, Kobayashi Erika) is a Japanese author, esperantist, multi-media installation artist, and manga artist. She began publishing her work professionally in 2001 and is still active today, recently working alongside translator Brian Bergstrom. 
==Biography==
===Personal life===
Erika Kobayashi (小林エリカ, Kobayashi Erika) was born on January 24, 1978 in Tokyo, Japan to Tsukasa Kobayashi (小林司, Kobayashi Tsukasa) and Akane Higashiyama (東山あかね, Higashiyama Akane), two high-profile Japanese translators of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. She was raised in Ōizumi (大泉), a small town within the Nerima City Ward (練馬区, Nerima-ku) on the outskirts of Tokyo. In 2020 Kobayashi revealed that she has a child.
===Career===
In 2001 She received a masters degree from the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies (東京大学・学際情報学府, Tōkyō Daigaku Gakusai Jōhōgakubu). Subsequently, she began publishing her work.
In 2003 Kobayashi was appointed as the Japan Foundation's Banff Center artist in residence, and, in 2006 as the Nomura International Cultural Foundation's artist in residence at EAA in Estonia, and at CAMAC in France. In 2010 alongside fellow Japanese esperantists Mina Tabei, Kasane Nogawa, and Hisae Maeda, Kobayashi founded the Tokyo based studio “kvina”, and began producing “LIBRO de KVINA”, a book series in Japanese, English, and Esperanto.https://librodekvina.cargo.site/ In 2023, Kobayashi was selected by AC Japan as lead illustrator for Plan International's "I Didn't Even Know I had a Different Life" (私に違う人生があることすら知らなかった), an advertising campaign lead by the Japanese NGO that advocates for women's education globally.
==Literary Focuses==
Kobayashi's novels explicate the nature of histories and memories of radiation across generations through her exploration of the lives of women. Chiefly through the relationships of mothers, daughters, and granddaughters, and birth and death. Her examinations seeks to make that which is invisible, (namely illness, radiation, and the lives of the isolated)https://honsuki.jp/review/52453/index.html visible. https://www.catranslation.org/person/erika-kobayashi/https://www.vulture.com/article/trinity-trinity-trinity-erika-kobayashi-review-radiation-japan-olympics.htmlhttps://www.westtradereview.com/westendkobayashireview23.html In addition to the scientific history of radiation, Kobayashi takes interest in the events with which its history is deeply entangled; The atomic bomb, the Great East Japan Earthquake, the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 and 2020 are all topics that her works have investigated. https://www.ika-ostranenie.com/post/%E3%80%8E%E3%83%88%E3%83%AA%E3%83%8B%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%80%81%E3%83%88%E3%83%AA%E3%83%8B%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%80%81%E3%83%88%E3%83%AA%E3%83%8B%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%80%8F-%E5%B0%8F%E6%9E%97%E3%82%A8%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB Many of Kobayashi's exhibitions are based on her literary works, expanding upon them visually through depictions of light and luminance, again making the unseen, seen.https://www.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp/event/210917homecominghttps://www.westtradereview.com/westendkobayashireview23.html
==Publications and exhibitions==
===Bibliography===
Japanese title 	English title 	Publisher 	Year	Notes
ネバーソープランド 	Never Soapland 	Kawade Shobo Shinsha	2001	
空爆の日に会いましょう 	Let’s meet on the day of the airstrike 	Magazine House 	2002	
終わりとはじまり 	The End and the Beginning 	Magazine House 	2006	
この気持ちいったい何語だったらつうじるの? 	Dear Kitties 	Little More 	2011	
親愛なるキティーたちへ 	Unforgettable 	Seidosha 	2013	
忘れられないの 	Children of Light 1 	Little More 	2013	
マダム・キュリーと朝食を 	Breakfast with Madame Curie 	Shueisha 	2014	Nominated for the 27th Yukio Mishima Prize, and 151st Ryunosuke Akutagawa Prize
光の子ども 2 	Children of Light 2 	Little More 	2016	
彼女は鏡の中を覗きこむ 	She looks into the mirror 	Shueisha 	2017	
光の子ども3 	Children of Light 3 	Little More 	2019	
トリニティ、トリニティ、トリニティ 	Trinity, Trinity, Trinity 	Shueisha 	2019	Winner of the 7th Iron Dog Heterotopia Literary Award
最後の挨拶 	His Last Bow 	Kodansha 	2021	Winner of the 44th Japan Sherlock Holmes Award "Encouragement Award"
闇は光の母わたしはしなないおんなのこ 	Darkness is The Mother of Light, I am a Silent Woman	Iwasaki Shoten 	2021	
===Translated Works===
Language	Japanese title 	Translated title 	Translator 	Publisher 	Year	Notes
French 	トリニティ、トリニティ、トリニティ 	Trinity, Trinity, Trinity	Mathilde Tamae-Bouhon	DALVA 	2021	
English 	トリニティ、トリニティ、トリニティ 	Trinity, Trinity, Trinity	Brian Bergstrom 	Astra House	2022	Winner of the 2022 Japan-U.S. Friendship Foundation Japanese Literature Translation Award
English 	"SUNRISE" 日出ずる 	SUNRISE: Radiant Stories 	Brian Bergstrom 	Astra House	2023	
===Exhibitions===
Exhibition Type	Japanese title 	English title 	Location 	Year
Solo 	Trinity 	Trinity 	Karuizawa New Art Museum, Nagano 	2017
Solo 	野鳥の森　1F 	1F in the Forest of Wild Birds 	Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo 	2019
Solo 	His Last Bow 	His Last Bow 	Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London 	2019
Group 	The Radiants 	The Radiants 	Bortolami Gallery, New York 	2015
Group 	六本木クロッシング2016展：僕の身体（からだ）、あなたの声 	Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice 	Mori Art Museum, Tokyo 	2016
Group 	更級日記考―女性たちの、想像の部屋 	Women Imagining Rooms: About the Diary of Lady Sarashina 	Ichihara Lakeside Museum, Chiba 	2019
Group 	話しているのは誰？　現代美術に潜む文学 	Image Narratives: Literature in Japanese Contemporary Art	The National Art Center, Tokyo 	2019
Group 	りんご前線 — Hirosaki Encounters 	Hirosaki Encounters 	Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Aomori	2022
===Screenplays===
Japanese title 	English title 	Collaborators 	Year
女の子たち 紡ぐと織る 	Girls, Spinning, and Weaving 	Saho Terao, Ichiko Aoba	2022
女の子たち 風船爆弾をつくる 	Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs	Saho Terao 	2023
Category:Japanese writers
Category:Esperantists
Category:Multimedia artists
Category:Manga artists
Category:Japanese writers