Yu Miri's novel "JR Ueno Eki Koenguchi" (Tokyo Ueno Station) has won the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature in the United States.
In recent years, there has been a growing trend in which works of literature by female Japanese authors have drawn appreciation overseas one after another.
The U.S. National Book Award is a prestigious literary award founded in 1950. In 2018, "Kentoshi" (The Emissary) by Yoko Tawada, a Japanese novelist based in Germany, won the award in the translated literature division, one of the factors that raised her international reputation.
In "Tokyo Ueno Station," Yu tells the story of a man from Fukushima Prefecture who becomes homeless in Ueno, Tokyo. In tracing his life, Yu questions the social inequalities of a Japan that has put priority on economic growth from after World War II up to the present day. The novel, published in Japanese in 2014, was translated into English by Morgan Giles.
-- Post-Murakami generation
Since the 2000s, Haruki Murakami has won many prestigious literary awards, such as the Franz Kafka Prize in 2006 and the Jerusalem Prize in 2009, thus becoming a favorite for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
In the past several years, female Japanese writers from younger generations have attracted attention. "Hisoyakana Kessho" (The Memory Police) by Yoko Ogawa was shortlisted for the U.S. National Book Award in 2019 as well as the International Booker Prize this year.
"Recent appreciation of female Japanese writers is influenced by the rise of feminism on a global scale," said translator Yukiko Konosu.
"The Emissary" depicts a near-future Japan that has adopted a stringent isolation policy, while the existence of a secret police is one of the main themes in "The Memory Police."
"As the social climate surrounding the world as well as Japan is getting more severe, those novels became noted for their dystopian subjects," Konosu said.
-- 'Convenience Store' impact
The trend is also backed by the fact that "Konbini Ningen" (Convenience Store Woman) by Sayaka Murata, which won the Akutagawa Prize, became a global bestseller. When the novel was translated into English, it created a buzz in the English-speaking world for its unique portrayal of a woman working at a convenience store. The English version was selected by The New Yorker magazine as one of the best books in 2018. It is set to be translated into a total of more than 35 languages.
"The novel sold 100,000 copies in North America and more than 150,000 copies in Britain. The commercial success of 'Convenience Store Woman' ignited interest in works by female Japanese authors in those countries. It is also notable that translators and editors in younger generations are doing excellent jobs," said David Karashima, an associate professor at Waseda University and a translator himself.
"Personally, it is most encouraging to me when Japanese publishers are keen on publications in English translation," said translator Polly Barton.
-- Need for public support
In Britain and the United States, independent publishers that are avidly trying to find new writers have their eyes on translated literature as well. Perhaps due to such moves, new work by Yu, Murata, Aoko Matsuda and Mieko Kawakami have been selected as must-read books for this year by Time magazine.
To make the most of this trend, public support is essential. South Korea established the Literature Translation Institute of Korea and is working with the government on improving and increasing translations of the country's literature. Governmental support is limited in Japan, even though the Japan Foundation subsidizes the publication of translated literature. There is a need to come up with practical measures for the government to back up the efforts of the private sector.
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