Ryōji Arai

Ryōji Arai (荒井良二) is a Japanese illustrator, born in Yamagata^{[disambiguation needed]} in 1956 and resident of Tokyo. He studied art at Nippon University. His production of picture books is both large and varied – from small books for toddlers, to picture books of nonsense, fairy tales and poetry, both written himself and by other writers. He has also worked with advertising, magazine illustration and theater set design.

Awards

His illustrated books have won him a number of awards in his native Japan and around the world; the newcomer's prize Fourth Choice in Japan 1986, the Grand Award for new illustrators 1990, the publisher Shogakukan's 1997 award for children's literature for Uso tsuki no tsuki ("The Lying Moon"), the Special Award at the 1999 Bologna Book Fair for Nazo nazo no tabi ("A Journey of Riddles") together with Chihiro Ishizu, and the 31st picture book award from the publisher Kodansha for Mori no ehon ("A Forest Picture Book", 1999) together with the poet Hiroshi Osada, and the 2005 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.