Art book lovers head for the Tokyo Art Book Fair, which has a new award program from Germany’s Steidl Verlag, plus a Brazilian partnership.
Translating Japanese Literature: Powell and Kawakami
Author Hiromi Kawakami and translator Allison Markin Powell are linked by literature, as Powell opens a new database of Japanese-to-English work.
International Industry Notes: Beijing Book Fair, Japan’s Mobile Games, Scotland’s Indie Publishers
Zhejiang University Press has events at BIBF this week, as Japan’s Toto Serkan looks at Japan’s mobile gaming market, and Scotland’s Society of Young Publishers weighs the industry’s interest in new skills.
Finland’s Kickstarter Hit Is a Children’s Chart-Topper in Japan
‘Programming is a mean of self-expression, just like Lego and crayons,’ according to Finland’s Linda Liukas on her international children’s book hit, ‘Hello Ruby.’
In Japan: Publications of President Obama’s Speech at Hiroshima
The Obama visit to Hiroshima in May has led to more than one publication of his speech in English and Japanese: ‘Death fell from the sky and the world was changed.’
Japan’s Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes Go to ‘Exclusively Literary People’
The public may be less than thrilled to see Japan’s latest major book prizes awarded to people who are ‘not TV talent or celebrities,” commentators say, but that is ‘as it should be.’
Sawako Nakayasu on Translating Japanese Poetry
‘I was abandoned in the ocean,’ writes Japanese poet Sagawa Chika in her poem Ocean Angel, in the translation by Sawako Nakayasu, whose The Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika has won a PEN Award.
Did Matayoshi ‘Spark’ Japan’s Growth in Book Sales?
Figures show 2015 book sales in Japan pulling ahead ‘slightly’ by comparison to magazine sales. One runaway bestseller might deserve as much credit as softer sales in the fashion media.
‘Standing Firm’: Kinokuniya’s Hiroshi Sogo on Bookselling Amid Challenges
‘Heavy discounting will destroy market order, and idiotic populism will come to reign,’ says Kinokuniya’s Hiroshi Sogo, whose Tokyo base aggressively supports English and other-language work.
Publishing and Politics: ‘Toxic Negotiations,’ ‘Trumpian Dystopia’
International publishing this season is downwind of hot blasts of political potentials that many feel could be damaging to our books industries and their readerships. Welcome to a summer of insecurity.