Contemporary Japanese Literature is changing every day, and three writers visited the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre recently to discuss what’s happening in Japanese literature.
Monkey Business is the only English literary journal that publishes contemporary Japanese Literature. The publication is edited by professor Ted Goossen who specialize in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature at the York University and by professor Motoyuki Shibata who teaches American literature and literary translation at the University of Tokyo.
At the event, tthe hree young writers―Masatsugu Ono , a novelist shortlisted three times for the Akutagawa Prize, Yoko Hayasuke who made her debut in the Japanese version of Monkey Business, and Roland Kelts who is the author of the best-selling Japanamerica ― visited the JCCC to discuss what is going on in the Japanese literature and language today. Kelts described how different Japanese and American animations are, referring to “New Treasure Island” drawn by Osamu Tezuka, one of the old masters of Manga.“There are a lot of young Japanese manga artist in Japan. In Japan, not many people had resources to produce kind of high-end animation at that time. Such as Walt Disney and Max Fleischer. A limited animation technique has been developed in Japan.
For more in this story be sure to check out the October edition of Nikkei Voice. If you want to subscribe, please click here, but until October please enjoy this slideshow of images from the event.