土の器 (Tsuchi no Utsuwa)

Hiro Sakata (阪田寛夫, Sakata Hiroo), a Japanese poet, novelist, and children's literature author, won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1974 for his work Tsuchi no Utsuwa (Earthen Vessel). He also received the Noma Prize for Children's Literature for Tragedy-chan no Bōken (1980), the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award (1984), the Iwaya Shōhei Literature Prize (1986), and the Kawabata Yasunari Literature Prize for Kaido Tōsei (1987), among other honors, and was elected to the Japan Art Academy in 1990. Japanese