Kitagi Ukyo

Kitagi Ukyo is a Japanese novelist.

He writes literary fiction that explores human relationships, identity, diversity, and the ways people live together.

His works include Prosopagnosia, The Place of the Unmasked Face, Ristorante Lirasale, The Runner in the Sterile Room, and Landscapes of Normalization.

He is also the author of Kitagi @ Creative Notes, a writer’s notebook reflecting on his five published works and documenting his creative process.

Through his fiction, he explores the lives of people who experience the world differently from others and considers what it means to live together in society.

He publishes his works independently and continues to develop his literary work through both print and digital publishing.

Author Concept

What Is Kitagi @ Creative Notes?

Kitagi @ Creative Notes is a place where I reflect on my novels after I have finished writing them—

a collection of thoughts and a record of my creative work.

While I am writing a novel, all I think about is moving forward.

To use a soccer analogy, it is like dribbling the ball toward the goal.

Of course, as I make my way toward the goal of completing a work, 

I think about the flow of the story, the backgrounds of the characters, 

and the themes and intentions I want to place within it.

But while I am writing, my mind is always focused on one thing: completing the work.

A story that has not yet taken shape is gradually transformed into words.

Listening to the voices of the characters, hesitating, thinking, 

I continue writing, one line at a time.

That time belongs only to the author and the work itself.

While writing, there is no need to explain it to anyone.

Can I, as the author, truly believe in this story?

Can I feel that the characters are genuinely living their own lives?

That is what matters.

But the moment the manuscript is finished, the world surrounding the work changes.

A completed novel no longer belongs to the author alone.

It passes into the hands of readers, where it encounters their own lives and experiences, 

and begins to exist as a book in its own right.

And at that point, there are things I sometimes find myself wanting to share.

“Why did I write this work?”

“What did I hope to convey through this story?”

“What thoughts and feelings gave birth to these characters?”

There are things I did not write directly into the novel—

the background behind the work and the thoughts that remain with me as its author.

I created Kitagi @ Creative Notes as a place to record them.

This is not a collection of plot outlines written before beginning a work.

Nor is it a diary kept while writing.

It is a notebook for looking back on a work after it has been completed, 

with some time and distance.

If I have time to create a detailed plot, I would rather begin writing.

If I have time to keep a diary, I would rather use that time to move the manuscript forward.

That is how much time and energy it takes to complete a single work.

There are things I cannot see while I am in the middle of writing a story, 

but which become visible only after it is finished.

The thoughts I placed within the characters.

The events that inspired me to write the work.

What writing it taught me about human connections and about life itself.

In Kitagi @ Creative Notes, I will leave a record of these stories behind the works, 

as well as my experiences of creating, writing, publishing,

 and living the life of an author.

Because it is a notebook, it is not something that begins in a finished form.

In fact, I do not believe a notebook meant to record an ongoing journey

 can ever have a final form.

It is something that gradually accumulates as I continue to write.

“Kitagi Ukyo thinks about these things as he writes.”

“What kind of time passes before a single book comes into being?”

I would be glad if you could read these pages with those thoughts in mind, 

as though quietly opening a notebook.

This is not a place where I provide answers to my works.

It is a place where I leave behind the circumstances from which they emerged, 

and the thoughts and feelings I carried at the time.

Little by little, I will continue adding to this record—the creative journey of Kitagi Ukyo.