I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 311 Are you crazy? Not giving him the Booker Prize?

September 1997 in this parallel world became a "literary show" for Kitagawa Hide alone.

The long-awaited final chapter of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" shocked the world. Japanese readers rushed to buy the August issue of "Wenyi" like crazy, just to get a glimpse of the ending of "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

The first two volumes of "Remembrance of Things Past" also hit Korean readers in Seoul, South Korea like a blockbuster bomb.

On the day the Korean translation of Remembrance of Things Past was released, it set a sales record for foreign literary works in the Korean literary market.

46.7 copies!

That's right.

Kitagawa Hide's book was on sale for only one day before it replaced The Sorrows of Young Werther by German writer Goethe and became the best-selling foreign literary work in Korean history!
And this sales record is still being improved, and it is about to reach 100 million copies!

Of course, a lot of this was due to the exchange meeting of masters of American Western literature.

But it cannot be denied that Kitagawa Hide did indeed open up a gap in the Korean literary market.

It also indirectly solved the Wengchukcun Publishing Group which was in financial crisis.

Because several of Kitagawa Hide's works were so popular and caused a sensation in France, South Korea, the six Latin American civet countries and other countries, the jury of the British Booker Prize, one of the world's three major literary awards, finally noticed this supernova in the world literary scene.

At this time, Kawaide Shobo had not found any British publishing house to cooperate with, so Kitagawa Hide's novels had not yet circulated in the British literary market.

Even so, the British internet is already flooded with English translations of Kitagawa's various novels.

These pirated novels seriously infringed upon Kitagawa Hide's rights. Britain is a country that attaches great importance to writers' copyrights, and the relevant copyright departments immediately cracked down on such behavior.

Then, to their great surprise, the crackdown lasted for more than three months, but the number of English translations of Kitagawa Hide's novels on the Internet not only did not decrease, but increased!

Various British newspapers and magazines have joined in the discussion of this Japanese writer.

The Times claimed that Hideo Kitagawa was "the greatest new humanist in the world's literary world after Goethe and Hugo."

This evaluation was so high that many people believed that Kawaide Shobo and Kitagawa Hide paid The Times to help praise it.

After a heated discussion, pirated copies of "Remembrance of Things Past" and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" have resurfaced on the British Internet.

mid-September.

Special Office for the Booker Prize Judges, Faculty of Arts, University of Cambridge.

David Harry, a well-known British writer, critic and lifetime judge of the Booker Prize, and John Marling, professor of the Faculty of Arts at Cambridge University, are having a heated discussion on "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

".Even though the original language of this work is Japanese and the translations are mainly in Latin American languages, its quality is definitely good enough to be nominated for the Booker Prize."

John Marin held the copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude that he had bought from Argentina and excitedly shouted to his old friend,

“Among the world’s three major literary awards, only our Booker Prize is still sticking to the old ways, only allowing original English-language writers from the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries to participate.

Last year, France's Prix Goncourt broke the shackles of hundreds of years and made an exception to award the prize to Hide Kitagawa's Paradise Lost.

The results are obvious to all. The controversy surrounding the Goncourt Prize has disappeared and the value of the award has been greatly improved!
Even their French literary market has been boosted a lot!
Not to mention the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Over the years, the Swedish Academy has run it like the 'Oscars' of the literary world, and everyone knows it.

It is because they are willing to give the award to any outstanding writer in the world that the Nobel Prize in Literature can firmly hold the top spot among the three major awards!"

He really wanted to yell at his stubborn old friends and the judges of the Booker Prize: "Times have changed, my friends!"

Unfortunately, even though he was a professor of literature at Cambridge University and a leading figure in the British literary world, he still couldn't change the minds of this group of people.

This time, David Harry was finally called in. He was determined to convince him to submit this proposal to the Booker Prize judging committee.

“I understand what you mean, John. But you also know that the Booker Prize is the biggest award in our country, and every September, countless readers look forward to its selection results.

In 1968, our literary community proposed the establishment of a literary award comparable to the French Prix Goncourt and the Swedish Nobel Prize in Literature to reward the best English novel of the year.

Then the Booker Prize was born.

Since that day, for 29 years, the Booker Prize has not been awarded to any non-English novel.

To break this convention, approval from both the board of directors and the council is required.

This is too difficult! "

How could David Harry not know what his old friend was thinking?

He had just finished reading these two books by Hideo Kitagawa, and in recent days he went back to read Paradise Lost, for which he won the Prix Goncourt.

It is no exaggeration to say that any one of these three books, as long as an English translation is available, will easily win this year's Booker Prize!
But now, the problem is that there is no official English translation of them available in the Commonwealth!
The act of awarding prizes remotely is really inconsistent with the status of the Booker Prize.

Doesn't this amount to a direct stab in the back to the entire Commonwealth literary world, making the high-handed Western literary community beg for mercy from an Eastern writer?

"So are you going to watch him enter the next Nobel Prize in Literature this year and win it next year?"

John's fingers trembled with excitement, and he couldn't help but take a look at the copy of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" which he had almost torn to pieces.

What a shocking ending to that Gone with the Wind!
The opening sentence has been regarded by Internet users as one of the classic quotes in literary history!

And the "magical realism" writing technique proposed by Hideo Kitagawa is simply a groundbreaking feat!

In just this month, hundreds of novels imitating this book have appeared in the British literary world, and the "magical realism" creative technique has also been included in the textbooks of the literature schools of famous schools such as Oxford University and National University of London.

This is a novel that will shock the world literary world!
How could they allow it to be snatched away by the Nobel Prize in Literature?
"Don't you understand what I mean? If it wins the Nobel Prize next year, and then the Booker Prize is awarded to Kitagawa Hide, what do you think is the point?"

John was so angry that he wanted to dunk on David.

“No one remembers second and third place.

The most sneaky thing about the Prix Goncourt is that it was awarded to Hide Kitagawa long in advance.

This has led many people to mistakenly believe that the French have a keen eye for talent.

Even if many years later, Kitagawa Hidema won the Nobel Prize, they will never forget that it was the Goncourt Prize that first awarded him the prize in 1996!
We have missed it the first time, and we must not miss it the second time!"

"I" David was getting more and more confused. He kept wanting to say, "He's just a young Japanese writer. Will it really affect the reputation of the Booker Prize?"

But when the words came to his lips, he couldn't say them after thinking about the novels of Hide Kitagawa that he had read these days.

No one can deny that "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is one of the best novels to appear in the world literary scene in the past decade.

He is also writing a book called "Remembrance of Things Past", which looks like a long novel with more than a million words.

If its quality can remain the same as the first two volumes, then it is really only a matter of time before it wins the Nobel Prize.

The three major awards in world literature do not agree with each other, and generally will not give the awards to writers who have won any of them.

Therefore, since Kitagawa Hide did not win the Nobel Prize this year, it is estimated that he will have a hard time in the next few years.

Looking at the history of world literature, it seems that only a few people have been able to win two of the three major awards at the same time.

Is the Booker Prize really going to set this precedent?
"If the Booker Prize is announced to be awarded to him, it will indirectly block his path to the Nobel Prize. If I remember correctly, so far, it seems that no writer has won the three major awards at the same time.

So I thought of a way to make everyone happy.”

Seeing that David was still hesitant, John finally brought out his trump card.
“You could suggest to the board and council that they create a new Man Booker International Prize, separate from the Man Booker Prize.

The former is aimed at all English novels by foreign writers, while the latter only selects English novels by writers of Commonwealth nationality.

In this way, even if Kitagawa Hide wins the Booker Prize, it will not violate the principle of mutual exclusion among the three major awards, and our award selection this year will not be affected in any way. "

"You're crazy"

David opened his eyes wide and was about to scold his old friend, but when he turned around and thought about it, it seemed that there was some truth in it.

The fact that the Booker Prize is only awarded to British writers has always been criticized, and the board of directors and the council have repeatedly proposed the establishment of a new award to be on par with the other two major awards.

Unfortunately, the inexplicable sense of superiority of the descendants of the nobility of the "British Empire" has made it difficult for these guys to bring themselves to do this.

But no one can go against money and the general trend.

Perhaps this is indeed a good time to suggest some reforms!
Moreover, in 1991, the Board and Council established the Russian Booker Prize.

This is the first non-state literary award in Russia since 1917. It is awarded once a year to select the best novel of the year.

Since its establishment, the award has become one of the most important awards in the field of Russian literature, and is very popular and successful.

"I understand. I will write the proposal form right away and send it to the board of directors and the council tomorrow."

David no longer hesitated and decided to follow the advice of his old friend and take the Booker Prize for Literature a new step forward.

I hope that Hide Kitagawa, the winner of the first Booker International Prize, can make this award shine brightly in the future!
Kitagawa Hide, who was far away in Los Angeles, USA, had no idea that he had won another international award inexplicably.

He has recently been struggling to write the founding words for the award.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" allowed "Wenyi" to completely dominate Japan's pure literature publishing industry, and his name, along with Hayao Miyazaki, became one of the most well-known Japanese names overseas.

Ichiro Tanizaki ultimately failed to survive the judicial trial and was thrown into prison along with Yoriyoshi Arima and Naoki Hyakuta.

The Akutagawa Prize, which had also disgusted Kitagawa Hide before, has also fallen into obscurity along with the Tanizaki Prize.

After the first prize in the Japanese pure literature world became vacant, Kawaide Shizuko, who had just regained control of the company and family, immediately proposed to establish a new literary award in Kitagawa Hide's name!

The Kitagawa Prize, long-awaited by countless readers and writers, is finally coming out.

To this end, Kawaide Shobo invited many literary giants, promoted it tirelessly in various universities, and even asked the newly rebuilt Japan Literature Society to help support it.

The Prime Minister's Cabinet and the Ministry of Education agreed to the establishment of the Kitagawa Prize in exchange for obtaining the naming rights for "Norwegian Wood."

"I'm only 25 years old. At this time in my last life, I was still racking my brains to figure out how to write a thesis for admission to graduate school!"

Kitagawa Hide couldn't help but let out a sigh.

He doesn't have to worry about the establishment process and operation model of the Kitagawa Prize, as Arikawa Shobo is fully responsible for it.

He only needs to hold the title of lifetime judge, chairman of the jury, honorary president of the board of directors and the council, and then he can enjoy high dividends every year.

But he has to write the award's founding words.

The so-called founding words refer to the original intention of establishing the award and the type of winners it will be awarded to.

Take the Nobel Prize in Literature as an example. The Nobel Prize in Literature was established according to Nobel’s will in 1895. Its purpose is to reward the best works with ideal tendencies in the field of literature.

Its founding words are "This award shall be given to the person who has made the greatest contribution to the history of human literature in the past year!"

Beichuan Xiu scratched his head, feeling that thinking about this thing was more difficult than asking him to copy a book.

After struggling for a long time, he decided to just copy down the words of the Nobel Prize.

"This award is given to the writer who has made a great contribution to the history of Japanese literature in the past year!"

As for the original intention of its establishment, it is to reward works that demonstrate extremely high literary creation ability in pure literary creation and have a strong Japanese literary style.

After typing up all these things, Kitagawa Hide immediately sent them to Saito Rena.

After a while, the computer beeped and Saito Reina replied to the email -

[Received! The founding words have been sent to the award establishment department.

By the way, Kitagawa, how is Yumeko doing? 】

This guy rarely writes such colloquial and personal questions in public emails. It seems that he is really worried about Yumeko.

Kitagawa Hide thought about it and felt that it would be more convenient to communicate over the phone.

He took out his cell phone and dialed the number. After just one beep, the call was connected.

"Moshi Moshi? Beichuan, is that you?"

"It's me. Yumeko is doing fine. The doctor here said the due date will be around October 10th. Once the baby is born, we may be back in a month or two."

"Great! We still don't know if it's a boy or a girl, right?"

"I asked the doctor before, and he said there's a fortune-telling shop across from the hospital that does very accurate predictions. I went to get a fortune-teller, and he said the probability of having twins is very high."

Kitagawa Hide chuckled comfortably.

He originally didn't care at all about whether the baby would be a boy or a girl, but he didn't expect that such a thing would happen in an American hospital, so he went to have a fortune-teller out of curiosity.

The results are gratifying!

They turned out to be rare dragon and phoenix twins!
(End of this chapter)