Durian Sukegawa

Under the distinctive pen name Durian Sukegawa, this Japanese author created one of the most quietly devastating novels in recent Japanese fiction. Sweet Bean Paste (An) tells the story of a dorayaki shop manager and the elderly woman who transforms his business — and his life — with her extraordinary bean paste recipe. Beneath its gentle surface lies a powerful meditation on leprosy, social stigma, and the meaning of a life well lived.

The novel was adapted into Naomi Kawase's acclaimed 2015 film Sweet Bean (An). Sukegawa's prose has the deceptive simplicity of the best comfort fiction — warm and accessible, yet quietly confronting some of Japan's deepest social wounds. He writes about outcasts with tenderness and moral clarity, and Sweet Bean Paste has become a quiet classic of contemporary Japanese literature.