Keiichiro Hirano is a Japanese author who has written more than 15 novels since his debut work Eclipse, for which he won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize at the record age of 23. His deeply psychological fiction explores profound and universal themes such as self-love, relationships, and acceptance, and spans short stories, historical novels, essays, love stories, and literary sci-fi.
As a cultural envoy to Paris appointed by Japan’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs, he traveled throughout Europe giving lectures, and many of his books have been translated and are widely read in the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, China, and Korea. In his widely viewed TED Talk, he discusses what it means to truly love oneself, arguing that it is difficult to fully love ourselves without understanding all our “selves,” both good and bad, but that we can discover the “self” we like with the help of someone we love.
Based on this theme, his novel At the End of the Matinee was a runaway bestseller in Japan and was released as a film in November 2019. A Man is the first of his novels to be translated into English, followed by At the End of the Matinee in April 2021. His work continues to reach the screen, including the 2022 series adaptation of Fill in the Blanks, as well as film adaptations of A Man and Heart of Hearts.
In 2023, his long-awaited Theory on Yukio Mishima was published. In 2024, his short story collection Mt. Fuji was released, marking his first in a decade. In November, the English edition of Eclipse was published.