The Yomiuri Prize for Literature (読売文学賞) is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shimbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone.

Award categories

For the first two years, awards were granted in four categories: novels and plays, poetry, literary criticism, and scholarly studies. In 1950, novels and plays were split to form a total of five categories. This was further reorganized in 1966 to form six categories: novels, plays, essays and travel journals, criticism and biography, poetry, and academic studies and translation.

Award winners

The Yomiuri Shimbun maintains an official list of current and past prize recipients.

Fiction

Drama

Poetry and haiku

Essay and Travelogue

Criticism and biography

Scholarship and translation