Status: | Active |
Founded: | February 1948 (spin-off) July 16, 1954 (official) |
Country: | Japan |
Headquarters: | Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan |
Publications: | Books |
Genre: | Mystery, Science fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Social science |
Numemployees: | 47 (as of March 2022) |
is a Japanese publisher of mystery fiction, science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction and social science, based in Tokyo.
In 1925, a publisher called of Osaka was established with a branch in Tokyo.[1]
In 1948, the Tokyo branch of Sogensha spun off into a separate company with the same name, Sogensha.[1]
In 1954, Sogensha (Tokyo) was officially reorganized into Tokyo Sogensha Co., Ltd.[2]
Between 1962 and 1970, Tokyo Sogensha changed its name to due to its reconstruction from bankruptcy.[2]
Both Tokyo Sogensha Co., Ltd. and Sogensha Inc. exist as unrelated publishing companies.
In 2013, the official mascot cat named Kurari was released. Kurari's name is from Japanese kanji of Sogensha. can be divided to kanji and katakana .[3]
As a science fiction publisher, Tokyo Sogensha began with the translation of Fredric Brown's works as a division of Sōgen Suiri Bunko in 1963. The division and its continuation, which was renamed as in 1991, are Japan's oldest existing Sci-Fi bunkobon label. It published 677 books as of 2015[4] including the works of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, J. G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Lois McMaster Bujold, Vernor Vinge, James P. Hogan, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Charles Wilson, and Greg Egan.[5] It scored early success in the post-war period with the Barsoom books of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the words of E. E. Smith.[6]
Sogen SF Bunko had specialized in translation until 2007 then it started publishing Japanese works. The first Japanese titles were reprints of Legend of Galactic Heroes #1 by Yoshiki Tanaka and Babylonia Wave by Akira Hori.
Tokyo Sogensha won the Seiun Award for Best Translated Long Work for 18 works out of 52 times (as of 2021);[7] the Nihon SF Taisho Award in 2012, 2013 and 2019 for Japanese Works.
Notable authors published by Tokyo Sogensha include Shirley Jackson, H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe.
Tokyo Sogensha awards some prizes for unpublished Japanese works to recruit new writers of specific genres: