I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 271 I suggest that Naoki Momota be disqualified from the selection!
"Naoki Momota." Xia Siting said with a somewhat difficult pronunciation, and handed the list of recommenders sent by France and Japan to Knut.

Knut quickly flipped through the Japanese list of recommenders, and saw "Naoki Momota" clearly written on it.

He still has some impression of this name.

"The nominees are Ichiro Tanizaki, Sadatsugu Ichiko, and Shozo Uchida." Knut looked down and saw that several of the nominees were familiar faces.

Ichiro Tanizaki was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and it was he who went against all odds and selected Ichiro Tanizaki!
As for Naoki Momota, it seems that he recently won the O. Henry Short Story Award in the United States?
"From his resume and works, Naoki Momota does meet the requirements for recommendation." Xia Siting sighed depressedly, "But compared with Kitagawa Hideichi who was recommended from France, he is not good enough."

"A 25-year-old young writer. I don't think I've heard of his name." Knut frowned and opened the list handed over by France.

Wow, the Japanese name Kitagawa Hide was actually ranked first, and the people following him were famous French writers he was very familiar with.

The 18 final judges of the Nobel Prize in Literature have more or less read the resumes and works of these nominees.

After all, the ones recommended are the most famous writers in their countries, and as judges of the world's top literary award, it would be a dereliction of duty if they have not read these top works.

But it was precisely this Kitagawa Hide who touched upon the blind spot of knowledge among the eighteen of them!
Looking at the recommendation letter again, Odemeson and Margaret used almost all the words of praise to praise Kitagawa Hide's literary qualities. It was more like a letter of bragging than a letter of recommendation!
The older generation of writers are all very rigorous, let alone this kind of boastful letter from fans. Generally, they don't even bother to mention the younger generation - some of them are taking advantage of their seniority, but more of them are truly capable and are indeed qualified to look down on the younger generation.

In addition to talent, what literary writing needs most is hard work over time.

An old writer in his seventies or eighties, as long as he is not just wasting time, his accumulation will certainly far exceed that of his juniors who are decades younger.

".The most outstanding young writer in the history of Japanese literature, and probably the most outstanding writer in the modern history of Japanese literature, bar none."

This comment was made by Odmeson. The last word "unique" carries a lot of weight. If it were to spread to the outside world and cause controversy, it might ruin his reputation and his integrity in his later years.

Odmesson must have thought about this question, but even so, he wrote this comment and sent the letter of recommendation to the Swedish Academy.

This shows that he highly respects Kitagawa Hide.

"So what are they arguing about?" Knut spent three minutes carefully reading the recommendation letters from Odmeisson and the other man, and then re-reading Kitagawa Hide's resume.

There is no doubt that Kitagawa Hide meets the qualifications for recommendation and is more suitable than Momota Naoki.

Xia Siting looked helplessly at the old man and old woman over there, and sighed, "How should we deal with the matter of Beichuan Xiu being blacklisted for recommendation quota?"

"A hacked recommendation quota?" Knut felt like he had caught another big scandal.

I haven’t been to the School of Arts for a long time. How come I encountered such an interesting thing as soon as I arrived today?

He asked about the truth behind the shady incident with great interest.

The telecommunications industry was not well developed in 1997, and the international Internet was extremely isolated, but the letter of recommendation sent by Oddmaison also came with a copy of Paris Soirée, with a piece of news circled in red.

He didn't say it explicitly, but his meaning was very clear.

Xia Siting told Knut that the committee had verified the matter - whether it was a conspiracy or not has not been determined yet, but it is true that Japan gave up recommending Kitagawa Hide and instead chose Momota Naoki, and the French inexplicably pushed him over.

The School of Literature also received some news newspapers and reports from Japan, and it seems that this matter is also being hotly discussed in their country.

"I asked a few friends in Japan, and they said that Kitagawa Hide and his publishing house questioned Tanizaki Ichiro very strongly, but the answer they got was that the conspiracy was not true."

Xia Siting continued,

"Oh, right. Japanese publishers control a lot of resources, which is different from us."

"Yeah." Knut now understood why the old men and women were arguing like this.

First of all, there is no doubt that Japan has pushed forward a worse writer.

But it is hard to say whether the Japanese did this out of selfish motives or they thought that "Kitagawa Hide is not as good as Hyakuta Naoki".

Different motives lead to completely different nature of events.

If they make a wrong judgment, we can only say that they lack literary literacy and it is a problem of their ability.

If it is done out of selfish motives, then it is abusing power for personal gain.

“Ma Yueran! Do you know how much impact it would have on the credibility of our award if we disqualified Naoki Momota from recommending the award and made it public?” An old lady pointed at Ma Yueran’s nose and cursed, “You are going to ruin the Nobel Prize in Literature!”

"What impact? It's nothing more than being criticized for choosing an inappropriate nominee! So what?"

Ma Yueran was not to be outdone, and stood up and fought back,
"Gunnell Valquist, I repeat, you are a son of a bitch @#$%"

"I'm going to fight you, Ma Yueran!" The old lady was so angry that she picked up her high heels and was about to hit the old man on the head.

"Hurry, hurry, stop Teacher Gunnell!" Knut, who was watching the show, could no longer sit still.

Those were high heels. If they hit Ma Yueran’s head, there would be at least a few holes in it!

Fortunately, the two were just scolding each other, and Gunnell didn't really fight after picking up the high heels, she just wanted to scare the old man opposite.

Ma Yueran was also stubborn enough. He stretched out his neck and got hit without even trying to dodge.

The group of people were making a mess, and Knut didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he had to clean up the mess, because he had the least experience among the group.

After half an hour.

The angry crowd finally sat back on the chairs engraved with their numbers and began to discuss the matter seriously.

After all, the Nobel Prize has been established for nearly a hundred years, and this is the first time that a recommendation quota has been so blatantly stolen by a nominee from one's own country.

"I still suggest that we immediately cancel Momota Naoki's eligibility to be selected, and immediately issue a notice to the world." Ma Yueran was the first to speak, "I know that once this is announced, there will definitely be people who question our nominee selection mechanism, and this scandal will greatly affect the credibility of the award.

But hiding things and causing a writer who should have been recommended to suffer injustice for the sake of an award, does this fit in with the motto of our School of Literature?

Genius and appreciation!
The world literary world produces geniuses, and it is up to us to appreciate and promote them to readers around the world.

Now that there is a genius, but because we have no ability to appreciate him, he is being tarnished. Is there any need for the award? Is there any difference between this and the Tanizaki Prize that Kitagawa Hide refused to accept? ! "

A question from the depths of the soul!
Everyone was silent.

Over the past hundred years, the Nobel Prizes have been announced time and time again, and have been hailed as gods time and time again, and these eighteen people have become figures destined to go down in the history of world literary history.

We all enjoy the benefits brought by awards and privileges. Will we become Ichiro Tanizaki one day?

"But for a hundred years, we have never announced the relevant information of the recommenders and nominees. The regulations require that it be kept secret for 50 years." Gunnar still wanted to "make the best of a bad situation", because disqualifying Naoki Hyakuta from the selection would mean that they would have to reveal the fact that the French recommended Kitagawa Hide, and that the Swedish Academy would have to officially expose the shady dealings.

This is a huge blow to the awards.

In her opinion, neither Kitagawa Hide nor Momota Naoki could win the award, so no one knew who was recommended and who was not. Even if there was a lot of noise outside, it was not true without hard evidence.

Isn’t this matter over?

"Rules are meant to be broken," Knut said shockingly.

Everyone looked at him in surprise, but soon felt relieved.

The relatively young Knut is a radical, as can be seen from the fact that he recommended Tanizaki Ichiro's "The Devil's Tattoo" against all odds. It is not surprising that he said this.

Everyone was silent again.

"This matter involves the overall credibility of the Nobel Prize. I suggest reporting it to the committee and letting them handle it," said the oldest one, Rashi Gulensden.

"Even if we let the committee make the decision, we still have to give our own opinions." Ma Yueran did not give in.

After saying this, he felt that the deterrent effect was not enough, so he added a murderous remark: "If you want the Nobel Prize in Literature to be ridiculed like the Nobel Peace Prize, then do as you please."

Of all the Nobel Prizes, if you had to say which one has the least credibility and the lowest popularity, it would definitely be the Nobel Peace Prize. As for the reason, those who understand will understand.

Everyone was silent for the third time.

This sentence can be said to have completely blocked everyone's retreat.

"By the way, have you seen Kitagawa Hide's works?" Knut asked curiously.

Judging from his resume, this young Japanese writer is quite remarkable.

He made his debut in March 1995 and released his debut work "Hear the Wind Sing" in "Gun Xiang" in April, which was also the one for which he won the Gun Xiang Newcomer Award.

He then wrote "Ball" and "A Sheep Chase" in succession.

The entire youth trilogy surpassed all other books published in Japan that year and stole the limelight.

Then in 1996, he seemed to have turned on a cheat code, writing books at an extremely fast speed, with extremely high sales, almost sweeping all the charts in the Japanese publishing industry!
This guy also won the Prix Goncourt for Paradise Lost!

I heard that he was criticized this time because he refused to accept the Tanizaki Prize under the name of Ichiro Tanizaki for his new work "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

"No."

"Looked."

Several people had different opinions.

The only one who was watching was Ma Yueran, who was now extremely excited.

It is undeniable that these Western writers have deep prejudices against Eastern literature.

Ma Yueran has always believed that it is the language problem that prevents Eastern literature from showing the essence of its original works through translation, and he has been committed to solving this problem.

Therefore, he was also quite interested in Japanese literature, which was also in the East.

After Kitagawa Hide was recommended, before anyone else had read his works, Ma Yueran found the French version of "Paradise Lost" and read it.

The feeling after reading it was shocking.

The beauty of Japanese mono no aware is touching, and the combination of popular literature and pure literature is novel.

This may not be his representative work, but it is already amazing that he could write such a work at the age of 25.

Then Ma Yueran read the French version of "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

Now he can confidently say: "Kitagawa Hide's short story writing ability is world-class. Momota Naoki? Let's not mention it!"

"Then I think we should all take a look at his work first." Knut suggested, thinking that it was no use continuing to argue like this.

Everyone nodded, and felt that it was not a good idea to let Ma Yueran and Gunnar continue arguing.

Anyway, in the subsequent selections, we have to take a look at all of Kitagawa Hide’s works.

After this little episode, Knut also memorized this difficult-to-pronounce Japanese name.

Don't underestimate the literary works from the East.

He is a radical and a pessimist.

For many years, Western literature has been playing the game of drawing a circle to confine itself. Relying on the foundation laid by its predecessors, it has only wanted to take control of the entire literary system and gradually stopped thinking about change.

Just like those feudal dynasties, after a long time, the roots will rot and one day they will be uprooted!
The Swedish Academy was in a heated debate, and Japan was also caught up in a public opinion dispute.

Since February, the market competition between Xinchao and Wenyi has become increasingly fierce.

In order to compete for each other's market, both sides started to spend money, using large amounts of Japanese yen to attract readers.

In terms of capital, Shinchosha, which had the support of many right-wing people, was clearly one step ahead. With huge amounts of money, it worked hard to achieve a miracle, and the sales of Shinchosha were not much behind those of Wenyi. It managed to make up for the gap created by Kitagawa Hide by relying on its financial strength.

Naoki Momota was the most frightened one.

"New Trend" sold so well, but it had nothing to do with his "Forever No. 24".

The first three short stories in his collection of short stories were still discussed, and the copyright was also sold. Although it is not as good as "The Dancing Girl of Izu", it is only a level lower.

But after the novel of the same name became popular, Naoki Momota's determination was directly shattered, and the subsequent serialized works were all rotten fish and stinky shrimp, and they were not popular even with crazy hype.

This person no longer exists on the Oricion credibility list.

The higher he is praised now, he knows that the harder he will fall.

We can only hope that Shinchosha and Ichiro Tanizaki are strong enough to surpass Kitagawa Hideichi.

In the middle of the month, rumors that Ichiro Tanizaki was going to write a new book intensified, which made the Japanese literary world lively. Then "Gunzo" was released again, setting a new record -

4211 copies sold on the first printing day!
I heard that the Noma family is considering selling "Gunzo".

On February 2, in order to create momentum, Shizuko Kawaide immediately announced the monthly sales of the January issue of the new edition of "Wenyi".

Cumulative sales of 561.9 million copies across the country!

This is the highest monthly sales record for pure literature magazines in the past decade, and the second highest in history!

In the minds of countless people, it has surpassed that issue of "New Trend" that year.

After all, magazines in that era were like televisions today, almost every household had one, and it is a historical record that cannot be broken.

Shizuko Kawaide's move worked wonders, and Shinchosha began to lose ground.

But just as she was making great strides, another major event suddenly overshadowed all these hot topics in the literary world.

On February 1997, 2, at around 19:5 p.m., police discovered the strangled body of Yasuko Watanabe (39), a female office worker working for Tokyo Electric Power Company, in a wooden apartment building called Kijuso in Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.

The cause of death was due to strangulation and the estimated date and time of death was 8-9 am.

Yasuko Watanabe is not an ordinary TEPCO office lady. She is the only female executive in the company, and TEPCO is a top national enterprise!

(End of this chapter)