Masashi Matsuie

is a Japanese novelist and editor. He worked for the publishing house Shinchosha, where he helped launch the translated-fiction imprint Shincho Crest Books and served as founding editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine Kangaeru hito. His 2012 debut novel Kazan no fumoto de won the 64th Yomiuri Prize for Literature. His 2017 novel Hikari no inu won the Kawai Hayao Story Prize and the Art Encouragement Prize of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Early life and editing career

Matsuie was born in Tokyo in 1958 and graduated from Waseda University. In 1998 he launched Shincho Crest Books, a series specialising in translations of foreign literature, and in 2002 he founded Kangaeru hito, becoming its editor-in-chief.

Fiction

Matsuie's first novel, Kazan no fumoto de, was published in Japan in 2012. The novel, set around an architectural office working near Mount Asama, won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature and was later translated into English by Margaret Mitsutani.

His subsequent novels include Shizumu Furanshisu (2013), Yūga na no ka dō ka, wakaranai (2014), Hikari no inu (2017), Awa (2021), and Tenshi mo fumu o osoreru tokoro (2025). Hikari no inu, a multi-generational novel set in a fictional town in Hokkaido, received the sixth Kawai Hayao Story Prize in 2018.

Awards and honours

1979: Honorable mention, 48th Bungakukai New Writer's Prize, for "Yoru no ki" 2013: 64th Yomiuri Prize for Literature, for Kazan no fumoto de 2018: 6th Kawai Hayao Story Prize, for Hikari no inu 2018: Art Encouragement Prize of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, for Hikari no inu

Selected works

Novels translated by Margaret Mitsutani as The Summer House (Other Press, 2025) and Summer at Mount Asama (The Indigo Press, 2025)

Other works