Chinese Author Nominated For Major Literary Prize

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via JapanToday: Chinese author Yang among nominees for Japanese literary award
Resident Chinese author Yang Yi is among the seven nominees for the 138th Akutagawa Prize for new writers of serious fiction for her story written in Japanese, the award selection body announced Monday. Yang, 43, originally from the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, authored "Wang-chan," a story about a Chinese woman working as a matchmaker between Japanese men and Chinese women. Rarely has a nonnative Japanese speaker been nominated for the coveted literary award.

[AssKissinger]

I haven't read so I can't say but it seems the Akutagawa prize is more geared up for bringing attention to the prize itself than the literature it's given too.

[Mulboyne]

Like most book and film awards around the world, the main aim is to increase the sales of the works nominated. Winning an Akutagawa or a Naoki prize can be a big boost for an author and the judges get to play the role of national tastemakers. It is ostensibly a literary award, though, so winners aren't guaranteed bestseller status.

[Mulboyne]

She won, but Ishihara isn't happy:

...Ishihara snubbed his nose at the recent awarding of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for literature to a novel written by a Chinese national. "It's no more than a kind of novel of manners," Ishihara said, referring to the novel, "Toki ga Nijimu Asa" (A morning when time blurs), written by the 44-year-old writer, Yang Yi.

He might be right, for all I know, but, since he's no great fan of women writers and his observations on foreigners in Japan are well-known, it's difficult to imagine that he was well-disposed to Yang Yi from the beginning.