After graduating from university, Aoyama moved to Tokyo to take a job at a travel firm. She began writing her first novel, Mado no akari, while working full-time.[4]Mado no akari was published in 2005, and won the 42nd Bungei Prize.[1] In 2007 Hitori biyori, Aoyama's story about freeters working part-time jobs, won the 136th Akutagawa Prize.[4][5] After winning the Akutagawa Prize, Aoyama quit her office job to pursue writing full-time.[6] In 2009 she won the Yasunari Kawabata Literary Prize for her short storyKakera, which was published in a collection of the same name.[7] She was the youngest author ever to win the prize.[8]Watashi no kareshi, Aoyama's first full-length novel, was published in 2011.[6] In 2016 she collaborated with illustrator Satoe Tone on the children's bookWatashi Otsuki-sama.
Writing style
Aoyama has cited Françoise Sagan and Kazuo Ishiguro as literary influences.[6][4] Literary scholar Judith Pascoe proposed that Wuthering Heights was a literary influence on Aoyama's work, particularly Meguri ito, and later confirmed this influence with Aoyama herself.[9]
^Pascoe, Judith (December 5, 2017). On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights in Japan. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. p. 150.
^"芥川賞受賞者一覧". 日本文学振興会 (in Japanese). Retrieved June 22, 2018.
