The Asahi reports that the winners of this year’s Yamada Fuutarou Prize have been awarded to Ubukata Tow’s 「光圀伝」(“The Tale of Mitsukuni”) and to Kubumi Sumi’s 「晴天の迷いクジラ」(“Lost Whale on a Fine Day”). They each will receive one million yen. The Yamada Fuutarou Prize is still a relatively young award (this is only the third...
Read more →At the English language edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, Waseda University Professor Norihiro Kato writes an op-ed piece about how the Japanese Literature Publishing Project was wrongly shut down by the Japanese government, based on two major errors: they don’t know how to count, and the budget screeners they sent knew nothing about the...
Read more →It’s official: Amazon Japan has announced that they are officially starting pre-orders for the Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Paperwhite 3G, and the Kindle Fire today; the Kindle Paperwhites will ship on November 19, and the Kindle Fire December 19. The Japanese Kindle Store launches tomorrow. The Kindle Paperwhite will be selling at ¥8,480, cheaper than...
Read more →The Asahi reports that Kakuta Mitsuyo has won this year’s Izumi Kyoka Literary Prize for her short story collection かなたの子 (“The Child Beyond”). Kakuta Mitsuyo is a perennial bestseller and at times a critical darling; Woman on the Other Shore and her smash hit The Eighth Day are available in English translations. According to...
Read more →The winners of the 60th Kikuchi Kan Prize were announced on the 15th, and among the many winners of this prestigious cultural prize is author Sono Ayako, not only for her work as a writer and critic, but for her work in helping the poor as well, reports the Asahi. Little of Sono’s work...
Read more →The Asahi, among various other places I’m sure, reports that novelist, essayist, and translator Maruya Saiichi passed away on October 13th from heart failure. He was 87. Born Nemura Saiichi, Maruya began his writing career in 1960 with エホバの顔を避けて (“Avoid the Face of Jehovah”) and was still publishing novels up until late last year...
Read more →I realized almost too late that today marks one full year of tracking English translations and intermittently reporting on Japanese publishing and literary news. When I started the site, I was unemployed and looking for a way to funnel my energies into something somewhat productive. Now I work, and while it has proven difficult...
Read more →While looking up information about Nobel Prize Winner Mo Yan’s forthcoming book Pow!, from Seagull Press, I discovered a play collection that I had completely missed from last year: Kawamura Takeshi’s Nippon Wars and Other Plays. I know next to nothing about Japanese theater, but the descriptions of some of the various plays make...
Read more →Tomorrow they announce the winner for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and like many years before, Daniel at How to Japanese has done a few weeks of Murakami Fest, in which he looks at untranslated bits and pieces of the Murakami oeuvre. This year, he’s taking a closer look at Dance, Dance, Dance, which,...
Read more →Kakuta Mitsuyo, one of Japan’s most popular writers, has won the Shibata Renzaburo Prize with her latest novel 紙の月 (“Paper Moon”), the Asahi reports. Kakuta Mitsuyo, whose works that appear in English include Woman on the Other Shore and The Eighth Day, will also receive a a three million yen cash prize. The Shibata...
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