I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 312: Selection and Honoring Hospitalization
While Kitagawa Hide was still immersed in the joy of having a pair of twin boys and girls, the 18 lifetime judges of the Nobel Prize in Literature once again gathered at the Swedish Academy to begin voting and evaluating this year's award candidates.

There are a total of 127 writers shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature this time, and the lifetime judges will vote by raising their hands to determine the final winner.

According to the rules of the Nobel Prize Committee, the winner must receive more than half of the votes to be valid.

Of course, in reality, the winners of this year's Nobel Prizes have already been voted on in the internal resolutions of the jury and the board of directors.

The winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature was Italian playwright Dario Fo for his work "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist".

This show of hands vote was just a formality.

However, at this moment, the atmosphere in the Swedish Academy's main building was very strange.

Only twelve of the eighteen lifetime judges showed up.

The six lifetime judges headed by Ma Yueran were "absent for some reason", and the reason for their absence was "we went to see One Hundred Years of Solitude."

Knut, who was presiding over the voting meeting, touched his nose awkwardly. After confirming that Ma Yueran and others would not be present, he had to smooth things over by saying, "Since all the judges are here, let's start voting by raising our hands."

The other eleven people in the conference room were silent; only the rustling sound of flipping pages could be heard.

In fact, many of them also have objections to the results of this vote, and want to watch "One Hundred Years of Solitude" like Ma Yueran and others.

However, these judges not only represent the most powerful circle in the world literary world, but also represent the literary circles of the countries behind them.

When literature is linked to politics and economics, it becomes less pure.

The Americans have just brought some fast-growing Asian and Eastern countries into the dust by shorting their currencies. The Western world's bad attitude towards the Eastern world is obvious to all.

As one of the literary awards firmly controlled by Western capital, the Nobel Prize in Literature is obviously not suitable to openly sing a different tune at this time.

Moreover, Kitagawa Hide's novel for the competition was "The Dancing Girl of Izu", which did not conform to their aesthetics and the mainstream Western literary style.

Then the problem is coming.

Are "Remembrance of Things Past" and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" the definite winners of the Nobel Prize next year?

No one dares to say this, it’s hard to say.

In the history of world literature, Kitagawa Hide was the first foreigner to write literary works about other countries. He became popular and created a literary era!

It’s okay to say that there is no one like it before and no one like it after.

But looking at the current world situation and the attitudes of various countries, it is obviously inappropriate to award him the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is full of gold content.

But asking these living fossils of the literary world to deny the literary value of these two books is almost more painful than killing them!

The voting began in a dead silence.

Those who raised their hands also looked listless, as if they all wanted to complete the task quickly and leave this place.

".Then after the final vote, Dario Fo, a playwright from Italy, will win this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.

The voting results were seven votes in favor, five votes against, and six abstentions.”

Knut glanced at the record sheet in his hand and sighed.

His sight extended from the window, and he could clearly see the stone tablet at the entrance of the School of Arts.

"Genius and connoisseurship".

Looking at the words on the stone tablet at this time, I always feel it is particularly dazzling!
September 1997 was a month of frenzy and silence.

After the "Kitagawa Hideki trend", the literary markets in countries around the world gradually returned to calm.

The overseas film and television rights of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" were bought by Warner Bros. Entertainment from Okeron for $1.5 million.

The Buendía family does not have the ability to manage this big IP.

When Okalon bought it for $1 million, it was purely to show his goodwill to Kitagawa Hide.

No one expected that this book would become so popular worldwide, causing the copyright fee, which was originally thought to be seriously overpriced, to increase even more!
In fact, the most expensive novel copyright fee in the history of world literature was paid by Warner Bros. Entertainment.

In 2001, they acquired the film rights to the Harry Potter series from JK Rowling for $1.25 million, which shocked the world at the time.

Now in 1997, they spent a huge amount of money to purchase the film and television rights of "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which shocked the film and television industry.

It is hard for filmmakers to imagine how high the box office of this movie must be to earn back such an expensive copyright fee.

In fact, starting from this year, the box office of blockbuster movies in the world film industry will become more and more exaggerated, and the copyright fee of a mere 1.5 million US dollars is nothing at all.

On the Buendía family's side, Ochirón made 5000 million U.S. dollars by reselling the items, but he did not keep all the money for himself. Instead, he publicly established a "One Hundred Years of Solitude Charity Foundation" and conducted charity fundraising in the name of Kitagawa Hide, intending to use the funds for infrastructure projects in various remote cities in Colombia.

In order to commend Hide Kitagawa's great contribution to Colombia, the President and Congress of Colombia announced that they would award Hide Kitagawa the "Grand Cross Gold Medal of the Special Class" and erected two 2-meter-high full-body bronze statues of Hide Kitagawa in the capital Bogota and the small town of Aracataca respectively!

Kitagawa Hide, who was far away in Los Angeles, received this generous gift from the courier and also received photos of the two bronze statues.

The "Bronze Statue of Hide Kitagawa" located in the capital Bogota is a figure bent over a desk writing furiously, with a fat British shorthair blue cat lying quietly on the desk!

Five-year-old Pete probably never thought that in addition to being famous all over Japan as "We", he would also be remembered in a foreign country with his owner.

This also indirectly shows that Columbia is really grateful to Hide Kitagawa for writing "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and the details of his life are indeed carefully researched!

The "Bronze Statue of Hide Kitagawa" located in the town of Aracataca is much more literary. It is a delicate figure sitting on a bench in the sunset, holding "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in his hands.

It is said that when the red cloth of the bronze statue was unveiled, hundreds of celebrities from Colombia's political, business and literary circles came to watch, which was a major event.

Compared with these illusory titles, Kitagawa Hide was more interested in the "Grand Cross Gold Medal" and the $20 prize that came with the letter.

If you don’t check it, you don’t know.
It turns out that the prototype of this medal was taken from the famous German "Grand Cross Gold Party Medal", which was named the "German Medal" by a failed art student.

It is said that in Germany, people receive that thing while lying down, and it basically only appears at the funerals of the deceased, so it is also called a "death medal".

Historically, Colombia has not had too many disputes with Germany, but they are very hostile to Israel and the Jews.

The enemy of the enemy is the friend.

Therefore, Hide Kitagawa could understand why they designed their highest medal like this.

In short, he will put the medal in the honor display cabinet under "The Best in the World", so that it will become a part of his literary achievements!

During these days in Los Angeles, Kitagawa Hide began to concentrate on writing "Norwegian Wood".

Occasionally, with the hospital's permission, he would secretly bring some delicious and fun things to visit Mengzi.

The intensive care unit where Yumeko lived was near the critical care building, and there was also a large mental health building next to it. So whenever he went there, Kitagawa Hide could always see some touching scenes of "birth, aging, sickness and death."

Perhaps the hospital hopes that the arrival of a newborn will wash away some of the fear about "death"!
This made it convenient for Kitagawa Hide to use local materials. In "Norwegian Wood", the heroine Naoko disappeared and reappeared as a mental patient.

After the male protagonist Watanabe and Naoko reunited in the mental hospital, they spent a few happy days there and got to know several other patients.

After Naoko committed suicide, Watanabe and a group of fellow patients played "Norwegian Wood" on guitar at her funeral to express their remembrance of her and their dissatisfaction and protest against society.

Kitagawa Hide is familiar with these plots, but after face-to-face communication with mental patients, his perception of this group of people has completely changed.

When I watched "Norwegian Wood" before, I felt that Haruki Murakami was just whining and deliberately portraying a mentally ill female protagonist.

But after he communicated with several mental patients in a Los Angeles hospital for some time, Kitagawa Hide suddenly felt that what Murakami Haruki wrote was extremely real.

This also adds to the tragic color of the character of Naoko.

She was really sick, tired, and wanted to die.

Kitagawa Hide was deeply touched and immediately overturned and rewrote part of the content he had written, focusing on the portrayal and reproduction of the character of Naoko.

Perhaps his repeated revisions and pursuit of truth cannot make readers empathize with him, but in the process of doing so, he truly felt the writing ideas of the top literary masters.

He felt that this was also an opportunity for him to truly move towards that path.

But because of this, "Norwegian Wood", which was originally supposed to be serialized seamlessly in the September 1997 issue of "Wenyi", was forced to be postponed.

Saito Rena, who got the news first, was not worried but relieved instead.

Kitagawa Hide, who has just finished writing "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and is still updating "Remembrance of Things Past", would throw out a new bomb.

She was worried that she and her Japanese readers would not be able to bear it!
Because Kitagawa Hide and Kawaide Shobo have repeatedly emphasized that this is the second time Kitagawa Hide has written a pure "Kitagawa Hide style" novel after "Border".

The Ministry of Education is also helping with promotion.

If the final result is not satisfactory and the readers' expectations are dashed, it may shake Kitagawa Hide's position in everyone's mind.

Now is the time when Kitagawa Hide is making great progress, and Saito Rena would rather he do nothing than make any mistakes.

Even if it’s a writer’s block, she can accept it even if it’s delayed until next year!
Kitagawa Hide blamed himself for this.

This seemed to be the first time he had delayed submitting a manuscript since he traveled through time.

The deep sense of guilt in his heart made Kitagawa Xiu more serious, and he increased the time he spent on writing from six hours a day to eight hours!

Then the end of September.

Yumeko was resting quietly in the delivery room, but before she gave birth, Kitagawa Hide, who had been working overtime for a long time, fell ill first.

Before his eyes went dark, Kitagawa Hidemasa was wondering whether he should call Jabami Rei to consult the prototype of "Naoko" again.

As I was thinking, I suddenly saw double, felt dizzy, nauseous and wanted to vomit. Then I only had time to make a phone call before I fell asleep!
It was still five o'clock in the morning in Tokyo, Japan. Jabami Rei, who had been filming intensively for several days, was sleeping soundly. When she heard her cell phone ringing, she almost went berserk.

But then she thought that only a few people had her number on that phone, so she reluctantly got up and answered Kitagawa Hide's call.

There was only a loud "bang" from the other end, and no matter how she shouted or called, there was no follow-up.

Thinking that the United States is an extremely "free" country, Jabami Rei was frightened and contacted Yumeko as quickly as possible.

By the time a group of medical staff rushed to Kitagawa Xiu's home, his fever was almost 40°.

When Shizuko Kawaide and Rena Saito got the news, they felt like the sky was falling and rushed straight from the company to Jabami Rei's house.

After the three women discussed it, they decided to ignore the company and the crew and directly boarded the He Chu family’s private plane and rushed to Los Angeles!
That afternoon.

Kitagawa Hide woke up with a splitting headache, and found that what he saw was a gray ceiling and his nose was full of the smell of disinfectant.

"I didn't travel through time again." He just felt pain all over his body and his head was hot. He raised his hand to touch his forehead and found that he still had an IV in his hand, which hurt when he moved.

"It's over! I heard that if the fever is over 40°, people will become idiots. This guy seems to be really stupid!"

The voice that came into my ears was immediately that of that poisonous tongued woman, Jabami Rei.

She was the only one who would curse herself like that.

Beichuan Xiu wanted to scold her, but when he opened his mouth, he found that his throat was dry and uncomfortable.

"Rei-chan, stop scaring Yumeko, okay? Kitagawa seems to be awake? Hurry up and call him."

"Da da da"

"Water! Water!"

The ward suddenly became chaotic.

Kitagawa Hide heard the rapid and crisp sound of high heels.

Neither Yumeko nor Jabami Rei wear that stuff, so doctors and nurses shouldn't be able to wear it in the ward, right?
Those words "water" seemed to be said by Mengzi, with a hint of crying in her voice.

Anyway, he felt much more relieved as he was able to confirm that he was still alive and in this world.

Then I heard a faint conversation, it seemed that the boss and others were talking in English.

Am I going back to Tokyo?

He felt his mind was fuzzy.

"Mengzi-chan, don't worry. The doctor just said that Beichuan was just overworked, too weak, and had a high fever."

Rena Saito gently patted Yumeko's back. She was a woman about to give birth, but in this situation, no one could stop her, and no one dared to stop her. She just ran over with her big belly.

The one who fed Kitagawa Hide water was Jabami Rei.

In fact, "Long Legs" was more worried about him than anyone else. He was really afraid that his brain would be damaged. In the future, he would have to push his wheelchair and help him wipe the saliva that flowed out when he said "ah ba ah ba".

But after finding out that he was fine, Jaburi could no longer control her poisonous mouth.

After feeding him some water, she glared at him angrily and said, "You are so unreliable. I clearly asked you to take care of Mengzi here, but you got sick yourself."

"Book" Kitagawa Xiu's consciousness gradually became clear.

He remembered that he didn't save the manuscript before he fainted?

That was "Norwegian Wood" that I spent several days writing with great effort!

(End of this chapter)