Polly Barton and David Karashima: A Literary Conversation: Why Japanese Literature is Now So Popular in the English-Speaking World

I never imagined that the situation surrounding Japanese literature would change so dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years. And what's interesting is that, unlike the Murakami boom, the current boom in Japanese authors is centered not in America but in the UK. Both Sayaka Murata 's "Convenience Store Woman" and Yuzuki Asako's "BUTTER" have become hugely popular in the UK.

Up until now, an English version would be published in America, and then a year later a British version would come out, but now it's sometimes the other way around. Matsuda Aoko's "Where the Aunties Are" was published by a small British publisher called Tilted Axis Press, became a hot topic, and was then published in America, where it went on to win the World Fantasy Award.

Japanese literature is so popular in the UK that publishers even put pictures of sushi on the cover and write titles in katakana, even if it has nothing to do with the content.

It's impossible to discuss this boom without mentioning "Convenience Store Woman." The English version was released seven years ago, and that was a turning point: the Akutagawa Prize had been unknown overseas until then, but because "Convenience Store Woman" won the award, English-speaking publishers began to take notice of the winning works. The length is just right and the quality is high. The selection committee includes trusted authors such as Yoko Ogawa and Hiromi Kawakami. Now, publishers compete for the rights to Akutagawa Prize-winning works even before they've read them.

I remember that from that time on, editors started asking me not, "Do you think this will be the next Murakami?" but, "Do you think this will be the next Convenience Store Woman?" Of course, many novels by Japanese female authors have been translated and read for a long time, but after "Convenience Store Woman," editors began to seek out works by Japanese female authors that had an edge. This trend continues to this day.

When I try to explain this boom, I always think of the cliché everyone uses when talking about Japan in the West: that Japan has "a surprising combination of the familiar and the completely unknown."

A work like "Convenience Store Woman" touches on very universal social issues, but it's told from a perspective that's new to Western readers, a perspective that's unexpected and unfamiliar. This makes the reader feel like they've been transported to another world. I feel like this perfect combination of realism and escapism is what people are looking for in novels right now.

Some people say that Japanese writers have a different voice, and it's certainly true that writers who are read in English, such as Sayaka Murata, Mieko Kawakami, Yoko Tawada, Aoko Matsuda, and Asako Yuzuki, seem to see the world through a slightly different lens than writers in English-speaking countries.

Take feminism for example. Many Japanese novels that are acclaimed as feminist works in the English-speaking world, such as Convenience Store Woman, address various issues faced by women, but do so in a very light-hearted manner, while Western authors tend to make much stronger feminist statements.

That's why I think that lightness feels so fresh to Western readers. Also, the social structure and how gender issues are expressed in society are different between Japan and the West. I think you could say that these differences themselves bring about different perspectives.

Another interesting thing is that novels from 10 or 20 years ago are now being translated and attracting attention. Hiromi Kawakami's "Don't Get Carried Away by a Big Bird" was shortlisted for this year's International Booker Prize, but it was published in Japan nearly 10 years ago. Yoko Ogawa's "Secret Crystal" (1994) was also shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.

Speaking of older works, Dazai Osamu is incredibly popular. There's even an anecdote that the American independent publisher New Directions replaced the flooring in their office with the proceeds from No Longer Human.

The popularity of the anime "Bungo Stray Dogs" is one reason, but I think another reason is that it spread on TikTok. Both "No Longer Human" and "Female Student" became popular in the BookTok community. It's an amazing world where TikTok and Dazai come together.

According to an editor I spoke to, Dazai's works are especially popular with young readers. The younger generation is much more cynical than we think, and they like him because he writes about things that we wouldn't say today.

On the other hand, and perhaps contradictorily, Japanese comfort novels -- the kind that feature coffee, cafes, bookstores, and cats -- are also incredibly popular in the UK. And it's not necessarily the case that there's a clear division between people who read Before the Coffee Gets Cold and people who read Dazai. There are a lot of people who will read anything Japanese.

It's said that translation fills gaps, and perhaps these two extreme works are filling a gap in the English-speaking publishing industry.

There are obviously depressing ones and obviously heartwarming ones (laughs). I feel like this popularity of Japanese literature is not unrelated to the Japan boom in a larger sense. People here are interested in all sorts of things related to Japan, from Japanese food and stationery to tourism. I think some people start reading Japanese novels after visiting Japan, and some people read Japanese novels before visiting Japan.

Tokyo is especially popular, and many publishers include "Tokyo" in the title of their English editions to catch readers' attention.

The English title of Matsumoto Seicho's "Dots and Lines" is "Tokyo Express." On a slightly related note, when I was approaching various publishers about translating Kikuko Tsumura 's "There's No Easy Job in This World," one editor told me that it "lacks a certain otherness." He said, "It looks like a book written in English, and Japanese readers are looking for something more 'different from themselves.'" That was quite a shock.

He said readers want something that will take them to a foreign land.

Yes. I sometimes feel frustrated with the way Japan is consumed in this way. This can be said of the publishing industry as a whole, but there is a tendency to place more importance on image and topicality than on content.

But Japanese consumption isn't limited to translated novels; it's happening at all levels. For example, old Japanese reality shows are popular overseas on Netflix and other platforms. Just like Dazai's story, even content that would be considered ethically unacceptable today might be considered acceptable for consumption if it's filtered through translation.

That may be true. Another feature of Japanese literature that is not found in English-speaking works is that it straddles both the highbrow and the popular. In English-speaking countries, literature is clearly categorized into one or the other, but in Japanese literature, the boundaries are blurred.

This is also about television, but I once read an intellectual essay about "Terrace House," but I don't think the same is said about "Love Island." The same goes for books; for example, it's impossible to clearly distinguish between "BUTTER" and Hiromi Kawakami's works as highbrow or popular. This may be one of the reasons why Japanese literature is read by a wide range of readers.

In order to deliver a more diverse range of Japanese literature, it is important to nurture translators who have a wide range of interests, translators who have the skills to convey the voices of those who are not mainstream or marginalized.

Polly also participated in translation workshops held at the British Centre for Literary Translation, and now she's on the teaching side. I think it's important to pass the baton in this way and to give birth to translators with new tastes. One translator, and even five translators, can't do everything. I think the emergence of this ecosystem of translators is a change from 15 years ago.

Another change is that Japanese literature has become a larger part of the industry, and publishers have become more optimistic about translated novels. Previously, publishers could only publish one Japanese novel every year or several years, so they wanted that one to be as mainstream as possible. But now that the market has grown, they can publish a wider variety of works.

There are dangers in Japanese literature becoming increasingly read around the world in this way, and we don't want to go in the direction of "you can't be recognized as a writer unless you're successful in the English-speaking world." On the other hand, because any literary system has its closed sides, I think it's a good thing that writers who don't fit into that system can find a suitable readership through translation.

That's so true. When an author wins an award overseas, the book will also have a dust jacket in Japan saying "Winner of XX Award!" This may increase sales in Japan and cause readers to reassess the author's opinion. It's truly wonderful that translation can open up such possibilities.