Photo by Mie Morimoto.

Erika Kobayashi (1978–) is a writer, comics artist and artist currently based in Tokyo. In 2008-2009 she was invited to New York as an Asian Cultural Council/ Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. Kobayashi has authored the novel Madame Curie to choshoku wo (Breakfast with Madame Curie, 2014), which was nominated for Japan’s most prestigious literary awards, the Mishima Yukio Award and the Akutagawa Award in 2014. Other works by Kobayashi include the manga/graphic novel Hikari no kodomo 1 LUMINOUS (Children of Light : Luminous, 2013), which traces the history of the atom and of radiation; and the autobiographical Shin’ai naru Kitty tachi e (Your Dear Kitty, 2011), which is based on the diaries of Anne Frank and on the diary of Kobayashi’s real father. Another recent publication is Wasurerarenai no (I can’t forget, 2013), a book including the artist’s recent texts, drawings and comics. Recent selected exhibitions include “She Looks into the Mirror” (solo exhibition) at GALLERY360° in Tokyo; “Your Dear Kitty, the book of Memories” (collaborate with The Future) at Lloyd Hotel and JCC in Amsterdam; and “The Radiants” (group exhibition) at Bortolami Gallery in New York. Visit Erika at erikakobayashi.com.