I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 256 I suggest that Hechu Shufang should organize a Beichuan Award
Looking at the huge, eye-catching empty table in the center of the venue, the celebrities who came to watch the ceremony guessed the truth of the matter. From time to time, they looked towards the position of Takeda Tsunekazu and his son, wondering how this farce would end.

After entering the room, Takeda Tsunekazu, with a frown on his face, kept making phone calls, and Takeda Tsuneyasu, with an embarrassed look on his face, responded perfunctorily to other people's inquiries about his well-being.

As time passed, the award ceremony was about to begin, but the big table was still empty. Even Ichiro Tanizaki, who had always had a blank expression, slowly showed an unhappy look.

Not far away, Takeuchi Osamu, who was invited here, retracted his gaze and smiled at Kimura Keiko who was standing beside him, "It seems that Tanizaki Shang is in big trouble this time. Shizuko really dared to listen to that boy!"

A few days ago, when Keiko Kimura told him that Shizuko Kawaide was going to fully support Kitagawa Hide and refuse to attend the Tanizaki Prize ceremony with him, Takeuchi Osamu was not quite convinced.

After all, Shizuko Kawaide still has to consider the interests of the entire Kawaide family and Kawaide Shobo, and the Tanizaki Award is willing to name the winning work as "The Dancing Girl of Izu", which is of great help to the Kawaide family and there is no reason to refuse.

But she really did go crazy with Kitagawa Hide once!
"Young people don't worry about gains and losses like us." Keiko Kimura was quite satisfied with her granddaughter's decision.

The reason why Kawaide Shobo was suppressed by the other four major publishing houses was that Kawaide Shizuko's father, Kawaide Akira, was hesitant and did not have the courage to burn his bridges in doing anything.

Indeed, such a head of the family can firmly guard the foundation and allow the family to continue smoothly.

But such a head of the family will never be able to make the family more glorious and reach unprecedented heights.

To be a transitional helmsman with no achievements or mistakes, or to be a crazy gambler who may go down in history or be infamous forever, this is the difficult problem that every newly appointed chaebol leader must face.

Shizuko Kawaide told everyone her answer through her actions.

The fact that a female head of a household can have such courage truly makes many bigwigs of the same class admire her deeply.

It seems that she made the right bet!

That’s even more amazing!
As the two discussed the final ownership of the Tanizaki Prize, the discussion in the venue gradually grew louder.

More and more people are realizing that the Tanizaki Award is in real trouble, and out of curiosity they can't help but look with schadenfreude at Tanizaki Ichiro, the man now recognized as the "number one in the world" in the Japanese literary world.

He will be the guest of honor to present awards later.

When he walks up to the podium and personally hands the prize and the trophy plate that symbolizes honor to the winner, it also means that this "number one in the world" recognizes the other party's achievement.

The question is, if the Tanizaki Prize is not awarded to Kitagawa Hide, who else can it be given to?

If it were an ordinary writer or work, the Tanizaki Award could still justify itself and find a reason to get away with it.

But "The Dancing Girl of Izu" is different.

If you don't give the award to "Border" in the first half of the year, you can say that its style is not high enough and the love stories throughout the film are too low-level;
If you don't award Paradise Lost, you can say that it challenges public order and morality by writing about extramarital affairs, and such works are not suitable for promotion to the public;
If you don't award it to "Confessions", you can say that it was released too late, and its sales data and other data are not as good as the previous two works.

In short, apart from last year's "No Longer Human", there are always some reasons why Kitagawa Hide's other works are not suitable for the Tanizaki Award.

He didn't have enough qualifications at that time.

but now.

Kitagawa Hide has been promoted to "the best in the world" and used "The Strange Bird Chronicle" and "Killing Commendatore" to kill Arima Yoriyoshi without leaving a single piece of armor.

"The Dancing Girl of Izu" even surpassed Naoki Hyakuta and Shinchosha, and its first-day sales data directly broke Ichiro Tanizaki's historical record. The current trend is heading towards the first place in history.

Such a work, such high popularity, coupled with Kitagawa Hide whose strength and fame are unquestionable.

No one could think of a reason not to give the Tanizaki Prize to Kitagawa Hide.

If a work or writer that is 100% recognized by the public and the government does not win the award, the credibility of the Tanizaki Prize will inevitably drop to freezing point, and Ichiro Tanizaki, the nominal founder of the Tanizaki Prize, will definitely be affected.

The Akutagawa Prize, which was criticized by the public for not awarding the prize to Kitagawa Hide, is now almost becoming an award that no one cares about.

Even if the Tanizaki Prize has Ichiro Tanizaki as the backup, there is no guarantee that he will not be pulled down from the throne of the Ichiban Grand Prize.

It was 8 o'clock in the evening, and the award ceremony time had arrived. There was still no sign of anyone from Kawade's study at the door, and the huge hotel venue suddenly became silent.

The empty round table seemed to have become a restricted area of ​​the ceremony. Even passers-by would walk around it, as if there was some ferocious beast lurking there.

The two hosts, smiling but actually extremely panicked, had no choice but to go on stage and deliver their prepared opening remarks with the microphone.

They deliberately prolonged the time, and after their opening remarks they all talked in unison about some interesting things that happened in the literary world this year, so as to make it easier for the staff to quickly evacuate the conspicuous empty table.

Even so, everyone's attention was still focused on the empty table and Kitagawa Hide and others who did not come over. The awkward atmosphere always existed in the Tokyo Hotel.

After finally getting through these most torturous few minutes, the two hosts quickly invited the organizer, Tsunekazu Takeda, to the stage to give a speech, finally ending their embarrassing journey.

Takeda Tsunekazu went on stage with a gloomy face. He could clearly feel the mocking eyes of the people below the stage. In their eyes, he must have looked like a circus clown at this moment.

But even if he is a clown, he has to continue to finish his words and then announce the long-awaited list of nominees.

When they heard Takeda Tsunekazu start reading out the list of nominations, the celebrities in the audience sat up straight, put away their smiles, and listened carefully.

However, until Takeda Tsunekazu finished reading the last name, they did not hear the three words "Kitagawa Hide".

There was no applause, no cheering, and there was even a hint of commotion in the venue.

Everyone was stunned.

I didn’t expect that the Tanizaki Prize was not awarded to Kitagawa Hide!

He's not even on the nomination list!
Combined with the empty table that had been set up today, everyone finally confirmed that it was not that the Tanizaki Award did not want to give the award to Kitagawa Hidekazu's "The Dancing Girl of Izu", but that Kitagawa Hidekazu and others really refused to attend!
Therefore, the organizers of the Tanizaki Prize, who did not obtain authorization, could not even add Kitagawa Hide's name to the nomination list.

In Japan, using someone else's name without permission can result in high fines and imprisonment.

If the name and works rights of a famous writer like Kitagawa Hide are violated, the fine is estimated to be an astronomical figure of hundreds of millions! Originally, being nominated for the Tanizaki Prize was a great thing, but at this time, all the nominated writers had bitter faces and no excitement at all.

There is only one recognized masterpiece in the second half of this year, and that is "The Dancing Girl of Izu", which has just been serialized halfway.

Of course, there are many other excellent works as well, and several of them even meet the standards of award-winning works according to the judging criteria of the Tanizaki Prize in previous years.

But these books are all insignificant compared to "The Dancing Girl of Izu", and these writers also agree with this, and no one dares to say a word of dissatisfaction.

it's good now.

Those who should have been nominated were not nominated, but a group of people who were far inferior to it had their names read out one by one and were remembered by the audience in front of the TV.

This is not an honor at all, but a travesty!

At this moment, this group of nominees should have been chatting and laughing, showing their style under the camera, but now when the camera swept over, they lowered their heads one after another, wishing they could shove their heads into their butts to avoid the camera's tracking.

The audience waiting in front of the TV also gradually noticed the abnormality of this award ceremony. Especially after repeatedly confirming that they did not hear Mr. Kitagawa's name, they all showed expressions of confusion and disappointment, and some simply cursed and turned off the channel.

"What a joke! Isn't this the most prestigious award in the literary world? Why wasn't Kitagawa-sensei even nominated?"

"Who are these people? Why haven't I heard of any of their books?"

"Is 'The Dancing Girl of Izu' not worthy of winning? Could it be that these judges are just like the judges of the Akutagawa Prize, totally lacking the ability to appreciate literature?"

"I, Kawada, swear hereby under my real name that I will resolutely boycott the Tanizaki Prize from now on! I will cut off all ties with anyone who buys a novel promoted by this literary award!"

The audience in front of the TV was in chaos, and an unprecedented wave of nominations for literary awards broke out on the Internet!
The curious netizens even listed all the famous literary awards in the Japanese literary world one by one, and criticized those that were not awarded to Mr. Kitagawa one by one.

As a result, those writers who "grabbed" the Kitagawa Hide Literary Award were suddenly sweating profusely, and they rushed to post on the Internet, saying that they were absolutely not in cahoots with the judges of those awards, and that they were the ones who insisted on giving the awards to themselves. In their hearts, they believed that Mr. Kitagawa was more worthy of those literary awards!

Among this group of writers, the most unlucky one is undoubtedly Hiroshi Sometani, the winner of this year's Tanizaki Prize.

Hiroshi Sometani made his debut after winning the Shincho Literature Newcomer Award in 1980. He worked diligently on writing for 16 years and published a total of three novels and six novellas. During this period, he also won the Yomiuri Prize, the Ministry of Education Literature Prize, and was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize.

In terms of sales, he is at the bottom of the first-rate in the Japanese literary world. In terms of the literary quality of his works, the depth of his novels is far from enough to educate the nation. In terms of his status in the literary world, he has not seen any changes in his status for four years since he was recognized as an "upper-class writer" in 1992, and he will basically retire with this title.

Someya Hiromoto feels that being nominated for the Tanizaki Prize this time has brought his literary career to a perfect end.

As for winning the award, even if there was no big variable like Kitagawa Hide this time, it would be impossible for him to win the award if the list was ranked one by one.

When he heard Takeda Tsunekazu read out his name, Sometani Hiroshi's first reaction was to pinch his thigh hard.

It hurts!

it is true!
idiot!

You guys failed to invite the real person to the award ceremony, so you're making fun of me, right?
Is this an award that a writer like me can win?

Which bastard is secretly plotting against me? Do I dare to take on such a hot potato?
In the past, when receiving such a literary award, most winners would cry bitterly with gratitude and sob as they gave their acceptance speeches.

After Sometani Hiroshi came on stage, he did burst into tears, but he was not crying because he was so happy about winning the award. Instead, he completely collapsed because he was about to "go down in history"!
He really didn't want to take the Tanizaki Prize this time. If it weren't for Tanizaki Ichiro standing next to him, eyeing him covetously and hinting with his eyes that he must not step down, he would have run away long ago.

The host also noticed Sometani Hiroshi's abnormality and embarrassment, and immediately called on the etiquette lady to quickly bring the prize and trophy plate and put them in Sometani Hiroshi's hands as soon as possible to avoid any more trouble.

Then, under the spotlight of the whole venue, Sometani Hiroshi's face of despair was permanently recorded. Tanizaki Ichiro, who was taking a photo with him, also had a livid complexion. It was obvious at a glance that he was in a very bad mood, as if fire was about to come out of his mouth.

The acceptance speech that followed was even more awkward.

Sometani Hiroshi never thought he would win the award and didn't even prepare any acceptance speech.

And Takeda Tsunekazu and the others did not inform him in advance because they were worried that if they told him in advance, Sometani Expo would simply not come, and they would not be in trouble if they went on stage.

Therefore, when countless microphones were handed to his mouth, Sometani Hiroshi's smile was uglier than crying, and he could only repeatedly say things like "I am really honored to receive the Tanizaki Prize, but I believe there are people who are more suitable for it than me", "The Tanizaki Prize is a major award in the pure literature world, it should belong to the best work, and my novel is far from reaching that level".

At the end of his speech, he wanted to point out directly that "the Tanizaki Prize should be awarded to Kitagawa Hidekazu's "The Dancing Girl of Izu". Seeing this trend, Takeda Tsunekazu and his son hurriedly asked someone to pull him down from the podium to avoid any big scandal!

Just like that, the Tanizaki Prize ceremony, which attracted widespread attention and was even known to people outside the industry, ended in such a noisy environment.

In the end, the grand prize in the pure literature world was not awarded to Mr. Kitagawa.

And this time he didn't even get nominated.

With the publicity of various newspapers and magazines, this matter soon spread throughout Japan on the next day, December 1996, the last day of 12.

Soon, a large number of onlookers who didn't care about the award gathered around, curious about why this happened.

Hiroya Sometani, who won the Tanizaki Prize for no apparent reason, became famous overnight. His new works were placed next to the December issue of "Bungei" in major bookstores. It seemed to be a publicity stunt, but in fact it was more like an execution.

Every reader who comes into the store and buys Wen Yi will take a look at this novel that has snatched the award that The Dancing Girl of Izu deserves.

Of course, they certainly won’t spend money to buy it—the Tanizaki Prize, like the Akutagawa Prize, has no credibility among readers.

That afternoon, countless literary critics began to write articles to add fuel to the flames. Knowing the whole story, they pretended to be ignorant and frantically questioned the organizers and judges of the Tanizaki Prize, asking why they did not give the award to Mr. Kitagawa. Was "The Dancing Girl of Izu" not good enough?
I heard before that Mr. Kitagawa had a conflict with you, but considering that the Tanizaki Prize is the most prestigious award in the Japanese pure literature world, it would not become a tool for the two forces to fight. But now it seems that this is really the case?
Kitagawa Hide's number one admirer in the literary criticism world, Mori Tetsutarou, even wrote a direct article saying: "The Tanizaki Prize is no longer worthy of being called a major prize in the pure literature world.

Since you insist on targeting Mr. Kitagawa, I suggest that Kawade Shobo organize a 'Kitagawa Award'.

Mr. Kitagawa's works and abilities are clearly far superior to those of other writers, and in fact he no longer needs any awards to prove himself.

On the contrary, I think it is more meaningful for those writers to receive the 'Kitagawa Prize'!"

(End of this chapter)