Tetsuo Ukai (born 1959) is a Japanese literary journalist whose work includes author interviews, book reviewing, and reporting on literary prizes. Born in Nagoya, he graduated from Chuo University’s Faculty of Law. He spent a quarter of a century covering literature for the Yomiuri Shimbun’s culture department, serving as a books editor and editorial writer and conducting interviews with writers and intellectuals. In “Akutagawa-sho no Nazo o Toku: Zen Senpyo Kanzen Dokuha,” he read more than fourteen hundred judges’ assessments dating from the prize’s establishment in 1935, examining how critical judgments, deliberations, and the events surrounding awards shaped its history. “Mittsu no Kuhaku: Dazai Osamu no Tanjo” focused on three periods when Osamu Dazai did not write fiction, using reporting and documentary material to reconsider the relationship between separation, setbacks, and changes in his writing. Alongside literary criticism and research, Ukai has recorded other people’s experiences through extended interviews. As interviewer for Takeshi Yoro’s “Naru yo ni Naru: Boku wa Konna Fu ni Ikite Kita,” he helped assemble an account of Yoro’s life and ways of thinking.
