Erika Kobayashi was born in 1978 in Tokyo, Japan. She currently lives and works in Tokyo.
Kobayashi creates works that are inspired by things invisible to the eye: time and history, family and memory, and the traces left in places.
She won the 78th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, nominated for the 46th Noma Literary New Face Prize and the 38th Mishima Yukio Prize for Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs published by Bungei Shunju. She awarded the 2022-2023 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prizes (JUSFC) for the Translation of Japanese Literature for the Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, translated by Brian Bergstrom, published by Astra House. Also she was awarded the 44th Japan Sherlock Holmes Club Encouragement Award in 2022 for her novel His Last Bow published by Kodansha, the 7th Tekken Heterotopia Literary Prize in 2020 for her novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, published by Shūeisha, and nominated for the 27th Mishima Yukio Award and the 151st Akutagawa Award in 2014 for her novel, Madame Curie to chōshoku o (Breakfast with Madame Curie), also published by Shūeisha. Along with her literary work, she has presented installation pieces as an artist both in Japan and internationally that enable viewers to re-experience various scenes from her writings in which the elements of fiction and documentary drift between personal narrative and social reality.
Her other publications include the collection of short stories She Looks into the Mirror, the nonfictional work Shin’ai naru Kitty tachi e (Your Dear Kitty,), inspired by the diaries of Anne Frank and based on the diary of Kobayashi father, the graphic novel Hikari no kodomo 1.2.3 LUMINOUS (Children of Light: Luminous), which traces the history of the atom and radiation, and a book of her recent writings, drawings, and comics, Wasurerarenai Mono (I Can’t Forget).
Kobayashi’s recent solo exhibitions include The Life of Y, Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo (2025) I Am a Girl Who Will Never Die. / Seance, Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo (2021), His Last Bow, Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London (2019); 1F in the Forest of Wild Birds, Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo (2019); and Trinity,Karuizawa New Art Museum, Nagano (2017).
Group exhibitions include Plastic Utopia: Our New Ecosystem, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Aomori(2025), Our Reply: 1975-2025, agnès b. galerie boutique, Tokyo (2025), Onsen Confidencial : Erika Kobayashi, Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings,Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo (2024), Omoshirogara, Museum DKM,Duisburg,Germany(2022), Hirosaki Encounters, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Aomori(2022), Image Narratives: Literature in Japanese Contemporary Art, The National Art Center, Tokyo (2019); Women Imagining Rooms: About the Diary of Lady Sarashina, Ichihara Lakeside Museum, Chiba (2019); Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2016); and The Radiants, Bortolami Gallery, New York (2015)etc.
In recent years, Kobayashi have also written scripts for Dramatic Read Opera series that revives old songs with Saho Terao.
'The Girls, Spinning and Weaving' Featuring: Saho Terao, Ichiko Aoba; Video Director: Hiroki Kawai
'The Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs' Featuring: Manami Kakudo, Saho Terao, Buoy, Baku Furukawa Video Director: Shintaro Tamada.
In 2025, Kobayashi launched arbaro books, an independent publishing house born from a desire to bring books originally published in Japanese about the history of nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, and radiation to readers of English and other languages.
From 2012-2015, Kobayashi is a board member of the Women Writers Committee of the Japan P.E.N. Club andfrom 2023, a board member of the Human Rights of Incarcerated Writers Committee of the Japan P.E.N. Club.
Museum Collection
"Journeys End in Lovers’ Meetings"(2021)
Series of the "Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs "including"Spring Dance""Cherry Blossoms""Sky"(2024)
by Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Aomori, Japan
“Dollar” by The Taguchi Art Collection
Publication
France Edition
“Trinity, Trinity, Trinity”éditions Dalva , 2021
Translated by Mathilde Tamae-Buhon
US and Canada Edition
“SUNRISE - Radiant Stories-” Astra House, 2023
Translated by Brian Bergstrom
“Trinity, Trinity, Trinity”Astra House , 2022
“Trinity, Trinity, Trinity”Astra House , Paperback Edition 2023
Translated by Brian Bergstrom
Won the 2022-2023 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prizes (JUSFC) for the Translation of Japanese Literature
“Elemental”TWO LINES PRESS(“Precious Stones” ), 2021
Translated by Brian Bergstrom
Denmark Edition
“Trinity, Trinity, Trinity”Korridor , 2025
Translated by Mette Holm
Read more
Read less
