Japan Now Regional Events
Monday 27 February 2017
Hiromi Kawakami and Tomoka Shibasaki
Japan Now at Anthony Burgess Centre Manchester
7.00pm-8.15pm
Hiromi Kawakami and Tomoka Shibasaki exemplify the off kilter style and atmosphere in Japanese fiction today, launching newly translated novellas at this session. Kawakwami is renowned for Strange Weather in Tokyo; her latest work in English, Record Of A Night Too Brief (translator Lucy North) collects together the stories for which she won the Akutagawa Prize, an alluring mix of imagery and surreal happenings, and full of emotional resonance. Tomoka Shibasaki’s Spring Garden heralds a major new talent, with its luminous sense of time and place, it brilliantly compresses characters’ lives into a series of photographic snapshots. They discuss their fictional worlds with Martin Colthorpe, Director of Modern Culture.
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Monday 27 February 2017
Keshiki Series Launch Event
Japan Now at The Hostry, Norwich Cathedral
7.00pm-8.15pm
Join us to celebrate the launch of Keshiki, a series of stories from some of the most exciting writers working in Japan today. The list, published by Strangers Press, includes well-known writers alongside new voices, many with a particular connection with Norwich, UNESCO City of Literature.
You will hear four very different stories featuring unusual perspectives on contemporary Japan. Then we’ll also explore their journeys into English, and their visual translation into beautifully designed chapbooks.
On the panel will be authors Masatsugu Ono and Aoko Matsuda, translators Alfred Birnbaum, Polly Barton and Angus Turvill, editor Elmer Luke and designers Glen Robinson and Nigel Aono-Billson from Norwich University of the Arts. The chair will be Philip Langeskov, from Strangers Press.
This event is a collaboration between Japan Now, Writers’ Centre Norwich, Strangers Press and SISJAC. It is part of Japan Now, an events series exploring the nation’s contemporary writing and culture, programmed by Modern Culture in partnership with the Japan Foundation and Writers’ Centre Norwich, and supported by Arts Council England, Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the Nippon Foundation and the Japan Society. Strangers Press is part of the UEA Publishing Project.
The event is free, but places are limited. To reserve a seat, please check the WCN website.
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Tuesday 28 February 2017
Polly Barton, Masatsugu Ono, Tomoka Shibasaki
Japan Now at Leeds University
Parkinson Building, Room 1.08
6.30pm-8pm
Masatsugu Ono and Tomoka Shibasaki are two dynamic novelists from an emerging generation of Japanese authors, whose prize-winning work is being brought into English for the first time. Together they discuss their fiction alongside Polly Barton, an Osaka-based translator from Japanese into English. This event celebrates the publication of the Keshiki series of chapbooks from Strangers Press, and a quartet of novellas published by Pushkin Press. The authors will discuss their work and take questions from the audience, and the event is chaired by Suzi Feay.
Tuesday 28 February 2017
Momoko Ando and Aoko Matsuda
Japan Now at Sheffield University
Council Room, Firth Court
6.30pm-8pm
Filmmaker Momoko Ando and writer Aoko Matsuda bring a sharply contemporary eye to Japanese society through the stories they tell. In Ando’s film 0.5mm, Sawa is fired as a home help and finds herself destitute. She strikes up a series of ambiguous encounters with elderly men, exploring themes of sexism, agism in a comedy both dark and profound. Aoko Matsuda writes short stories including her debut collection, Stackable, which was nominated for the 2013 Yukio Mishima Prize. Her chapbook, The Girl Who Is Getting Married is published as part of the Japan Now events series. The event will include readings and film extracts and is chaired by Kate Taylor-Jones from University of Sheffield.
Tuesday 28 February 2017
Hiromi Kawakami
Japan Now at Toppings, Bath
8pm
Hiromi Kawakami‘s strange and subtle fictional worlds have made a huge impact on UK readers, and she reads and discusses her work at this event marking publication of her novella Record Of A Night Too Brief. Best known for Strange Weather In Tokyo, Kawakami’s novels and shorter fictions have won many important prizes and captivate readers across the world. She will be in conversation with her translator Lucy North and take questions from the audience and sign books after the event.
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Wednesday 1 March 2017
Hiromi Kawakami
Japan Now at Foyles, Charing Cross Road
7pm-8pm
Hiromi Kawakami‘s strange and subtle fictional worlds have made a huge impact on UK readers, and she reads and discusses her work at this finale event to Japan Now 2017. Best known for Strange Weather In Tokyo and more recently The Nakano Thrift Shop, Kawakami’s novels and shorter fictions have won many important prizes and captivate readers across the world. She will take questions from the audience and sign books after the event, which is chaired by Alex Clark.