Teenage Girl Wins Literary Prize for Rookie Writers
2006 Jan/Feb
CULTURE
by Kurosawa Tsuneo
- Prize Award Winners' Ages Dropping in Japan - A 15-year-old schoolgirl stunned Japan's literary world by winning the 42nd "Bungei Prize" for up-and-coming writers. Her feat followed that of 19 and 20-year-old girls who won the Akutagawa Prize, one of the most coveted literary prizes in Japan, in 2003. Bungei Prize Is Springboard to Literary Success The "Bungei Prize" is offered annually by Kawade Shobo Shinsha Publishers, which issues the quarterly literary magazine Bungei. Many of the previous winners have gone on to become popular writers, including novelist-turned-politician Tanaka Yasuo (the current governor of Nagano Prefecture), and bestselling author Yamada Amy. This time, Minami Natsu became the youngest ever recipient of the prize for her work, Heisei Machine Guns. Winning the prize does not by any means guarantee a successful future. A look at the history of the Bungei Prize shows that winners who disappeared from the literary scene outnumber those who became popular writers. It may be that some of those who faded away peaked as writers when they became prize winners after many years of literary training but were unable to produce impressive works after their initial success. Literary Prizes in Japan There are a large number of literary prizes in Japan. Prizes given to novels alone number around a hundred. (In addition, there are prizes given only for tanka and haiku poetry as well as other traditional literary works.) As with the Bungei Prize, literary prizes in Japan are mostly sponsored by major publishing houses for the purpose of finding promising new writers. Some prestigious literary prizes, such as the Akutagawa Prize, named after the famous writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927), are given to works chosen from those already carried in magazines or published in books. In addition, some local authorities sponsor literary prizes named after famous local writers. In the past, many writers in Japan began their literary careers after many years of apprenticeship under famous writers, though there were several exceptions like Natsume Soseki (1867-1916, who was a university lecturer), and Mori Ogai (1862-1922, who was an army surgeon). Recently, however, there have been many cases of young unknown writers stealing the show by winning literary prizes. Such a phenomena is not necessary unthinkable but quite new. Does it show that Japan's literary world has been modernized? ........ <<BACK

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