HOSHI SHIN’ICHI

(1926–1997)

   Hoshi Shin’ichi, novelist and science fiction writer, is best known for his “short-short” science fiction stories. Often no more than three or four pages, these works deal with a plethora of topics, and he wrote over a thousand of them during his lifetime. He also wrote mysteries and won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1968. Several of his books and collections of short stories have been translated into English, including Nokku no oto ga (1965; tr. There Was a Knock, 1984), a collection of 15 stories, and Ki magure robotto (1966; tr. The Capricious Robot, 1986). He won the Japan Science Fiction Grand Prize in 1998. Since 1979, there has been an annual Hoshi Shin’ichi Short-Short Contest, with the winning stories published in an anthology.