中上健次（1946年8月2日－1992年8月12日），和歌山县新宫市出生的男性小说家。和歌山县立新宫高级中学毕业。本名虽然同为中上但读音为「なかうえ」。妻子是作家纪和镜，长女是作家中上纪，次女是陶艺家中上菜穗。出生地是日本受歧视迫害的部落（当地的称呼为「巷子」）。在羽田机场等地从事劳动工作后专心投入写作。初期文体受到大江健三郎的影响。中上健次受柄谷行人推荐威廉·福克纳的作品，用从中学到的方法，以纪州熊野为舞台著作了多部小说。1976年（昭和51年），以《岬》一作获得第74回芥川奖。身为战后第一位芥川奖得奖者，蔚为话题。1992年，因肾脏癌过世，得年46岁。

Kenji Nakagami(中上健次,Nakagami Kenji, August 2, 1946 – August 12, 1992) was a Japanese novelist and essayist. He is well known as the first, and so far the only, post-war Japanese writer to identify himself publicly as a Burakumin, a member of one of Japan’s long-suffering outcaste groups. His works depict the intense life-experiences of men and women struggling to survive in a Burakumin community in western Japan. His most celebrated novels include “Misaki” (The Cape), which won the Akutagawa Prize in 1976, and “Karekinada” (The Sea of Withered Trees), which won both the Mainichi and Geijutsu Literary Prizes in 1977.