Japan-based Chinese author Yang Yi was nominated Monday along
with six others by the Society for the Promotion of Japanese
Literature candidate for Japan's Akutagawa Prize, which is the
country's topmost literary award for new writers, becoming the
first Chinese to get close to the honor.
The 43-year-old female originally from northeastern China's
Heilongjiang province was picked by the award selection body for
her novel "Wang-chan," which was written in Japanese and tells of a
story about a Japan-based Chinese woman working as a matchmaker
between Japanese men and Chinese women.
It's very rare for non-native Japanese speakers to be nominated
for the privileged literary award.
Winners of the 138th Akutagawa Prize will be announced after a
screening committee meeting in Tokyo on January 16.
Wang is currently a Chinese teacher in Tokyo. She got the famous
annual New Writer's Award of the Bungeishunju Magazine in October
for the novel, becoming the first foreigner given the prize.
The Akutagawa Prize, which was established in 1935 to
commemorate a late Japanese writer, is aimed at encouraging Japan's
new writers of short stories of serious fiction.
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(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2008)
