This year the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature awarded Japan’s highest literary honor the Naoki Prize to Joh Sasaki for his latest book Asking the Ruin (Haikyo ni Kou). The author of Zero Over Berlin now joins an all-star cast of Vertical authors—Keigo Higashino, Kaori Ekuni, Hideo Okuda, Mariko Koike, Natsuhiko Kyogoku, Arimasa Osawa, Asa Nonami—to be recognized as one of the best scribes in Japan today.

Kenzo Kitakata was awarded the 13th Japan Prize for Mystery Literature. The award established by Japanese publisher Koubunsha honors Kitakata’s contributions to the development of mystery fiction. Selected by critics, fellow writers, and the press, Kitakata continues to be placed in high regard within the world of genre fiction.

On a more somber note, last December the Science Fiction Writers of Japan paid tribute to a legend in the field of fantasy and science-fiction when they honored the late Kaoru Kurimoto’s Guin Saga with the Japan SF Special Prize at the 2009 Japanese Science Fiction Awards. Kurimoto’s magnum opus has been a staple of fantasy fiction since the SF premiered in 1980 and has inspired a generation of authors and artists in the field worldwide with her larger-than-life characters and inspired narratives.

So while the rest of the world prepares for the Oscars to close out the award season, Vertical is polishing up its bronzes and making space for more awards to come.