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Saou Ichikawa
Born	(1979-09-27) September 27, 1979 (age 46)
Alma mater	Waseda University
Occupation	Writer
Notable work	Hunchback
Awards	Akutagawa Prize (2023)

Saou Ichikawa (市川沙央, Ichikawa Saō; born 1979) is a Japanese writer. She is best known for her debut novel Hunchback, for which she won the Akutagawa Prize in 2023.

Biography

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Ichikawa was born September 27, 1979.^[1]^[2] She has congenital myopathy and uses a wheelchair and a respirator, the latter of which she has used since the age of 13.^[3]^[4] She has an older sister, who also has congenital myopathy.^[5] She decided to become a novelist when she was 20 years old, as she felt her career options were limited due to her disability.^[6] She first began to write light novels, but grew discouraged after a light novel she wrote failed to win a prize, and decided to instead write serious fiction.^[3] She graduated from Waseda University.^[7] She grew up reading the Paddington Bear books by Michael Bond and the St. Clare's books by Enid Blyton; she named Dostoyevsky's The Idiot and Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha as having influenced her.^[8]

At university, she began to research the representation of disabled people in literature, which inspired the writing of her novel Hunchback,^[3] about a profoundly disabled woman, Izawa, who pays her male caretaker to have sex with her.^[9] Hunchback was published in 2023. The novel was well-received: it sold 230,000 copies;^[1] The Japan Times described it as "dark and funny".^[10] She is the first disabled writer to win the Akutagawa Prize.^[9] Novelist Keiichiro Hirano, who was on the jury for the Akutagawa Prize for that year, stated that the book "knocks down conventional wisdom and common sense centered on able-bodied people".^[3] Viking Press acquired the English rights to the novel,^[7] and a translation by Polly Barton was released in 2025. The translation received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, both of which praised the social commentary of the novel.^[11]^[12] The English translation was longlisted for the International Booker Prize; the judges praised Hunchback for its criticism of ableism and sexism.^[13]

Works

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Träumerei's Dream (トロイメライのみる夢は), 2018^[14] (Not yet translated)
Hunchback (ハンチバック), 2023
Ophelia No. 23 (オフィーリア23号), 2024^[1] (Not yet translated)
Pick up a Konpeitou (こんぺいとを拾う), 2024 (Not yet translated)
Suicide the heartbeat(音の心中), 2024 (Not yet translated)
Girl's spine (女の子の背骨), 2025 (Not yet translated)
Conscientious objection (良心的兵役拒否), 2025 (Not yet translated) (Currently serialized)
- #1 Looking back at the witty phrases (洒落た文句に振り返りゃ)
- #2 Mama (ママ)
- #3 Balloon papa (風船のパパ)
Evil role (悪のロール), 2025 (Not yet translated)
Pow(d)er (Pow(d)er), 2025 (Not yet translated)
Luck (運), 2025 (Not yet translated)