Literary agent Janet Reid talks with editor Keith Kahla on the process of acquiring and publishing Japanese mega-bestseller Higashino Keigo over at her blog, and it’s a fascinating read if you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of how literature in translation is handled by a major publishing house. Some illuminating highlights: JR: How...
Read more →The Nobel Prize in Literature is obviously an incredibly prestigious award, made all the more so due to the fact that besides the members of the Swedish Academy actually deliberating, no one knows who is going to win until they announce it. There are no announced finalists or candidates, just closed meetings that take...
Read more →The latest and always excellent issue of Japan Book News is online and worth checking out for their detailed English summaries of recent books. It covers a lot of the major fiction releases we’ve looked at here, including Isaka Kotaro’s PK, Wataya Risa’s Oe Prize winning かわいそうだね, and Tanaka Shin’ya’s Akutagawa winning 共食い. Other...
Read more →Yes, five, count ‘em, five new titles. My undying gratitude to Nihon Distractions, without whom I’d be missing so many British publisher titles. First, we have four titles from Thames River Press, all rescued from the JLPP burial grounds (maybe they’re bargain priced now. Publishers, snap ‘em up!) They are: God’s Boat by Kaori...
Read more →Rakuten, Japan’s largest internet retailer, is expanding into the brick and mortar side of the publishing industry, it seems. The Asahi reports that Rakuten will soon start selling books wholesale to local bookstores, citing that traditional distribution channels take bookstores up to seven days to order more books, while Rakuten promises to do it...
Read more →A dazzlingly impressive collection of stories from this generation’s Kenzaburo Oe.
Read more →Murakami Haruki has had a good week:
Read more →The Asahi reports that the 48th Tanizaki Junichiro Prize has been awarded to Takahashi Genichiro and his novel さよならクリストファー・ロビン (“Goodbye Christopher Robin”). He will also receive one million yen. It’s a big, prestigious literary award, and winners include Murakami Haruki (who won it for Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World), Nobel Prize...
Read more →The Asahi reports that this year’s Chuokoron Literary Prize goes to Higashino Keigo’s 「ナミヤ雑貨店の奇蹟」(“The Miracles of the Namiya General Store”). The Chuokoron Literary Prize honors the best in “entertainment novels,” and offers a million yen prize. Everybody does seem to love Mr. Higashino, don’t they? The English translation of his novel The Devotion of...
Read more →Via The Literary Saloon: Ladbrokes has opened up betting for the Nobel Prize in Literature, as they do every year, and perennial favorite Murakami Haruki opens with the best odds this year at 10/1, and as of writing this has gone up to 7/1. What does this mean? Nothing really, because we’re gambling here,...
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