Associate Professor Masatsugu Ono of the Philosophy and Creative Writing Couse, the Department of Letters has won the 152nd Akutagawa Prize for his novel “Kunenmaeno Inori”.

The prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in Japan, founded in 1935 mainly for budding novelists. It is given to a serious short fiction selected, twice a year, from those published in newspapers or magazines.

A graduate from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, Ono completed the doctoral program with a doctoral degree at the Language and Information Sciences, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, and has a Ph.D. from the University of Paris VIII. He took up the post of an associate professor at Rikkyo University in April, 2014. His research focuses on the literature creation theory, literary criticism, modern Francophone literature, and comparative literature. He won the 12th Asahi Shimbun New Writer Award for “Mizuni Umoreru Haka” in 2001, and the 15th Yukio Mishima Award for “Nigiyakana Wanni Seowareta Fune” in 2002.