Shō Shibata

Shō Shibata (born January 19, 1935) is a Japanese novelist and German literature scholar who won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1964 for his breakthrough work Saredo Ware-ra ga Hibi (translated as "Even So, Our Days"), a bestselling youth novel depicting students influenced by leftist movements that sold 1.86 million copies and was adapted into a film. A Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, he transitioned from engineering studies to German literature, authored several novels, essays, and children's books, and focused later on translating and critiquing works by Goethe and Kafka. He resumed novel-writing after a long hiatus with Jizō Sen-nen, Hana Hyaku-nen in 2017. Wikidata