Japanese Literature Night: Selected Shorts and Author Talk with Keiichiro Hirano

Japan Society presents a night focused on Japanese literature with three special events. One ticket provides access to our entire evening of activities.

The night begins with Selected Shorts performed live at Japan Society. Selected Shorts is a weekly public radio show broadcast on over 150 stations to over 300,000 listeners. The series presents some of our greatest stage and screen actors reading some of today’s best literature, transporting us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. At Japan Society, Selected Shorts will host a captivating evening of short stories by three contemporary Japanese writers.

Following Selected Shorts, we are honored to welcome author Keiichiro Hirano for a conversation about his career. Keiichiro Hirano is an acclaimed Japanese novelist who has written more than 15 novels since his debut work Eclipse, for which he won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize at the young age of only 23. His psychological fiction deals with universal themes such as self-love, relationships and acceptance, and spans from short stories and historical novels to essays, love stories and literary science fiction.

Hirano was appointed by Japan’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs as a Cultural Envoy to Paris, he’s traveled all over the world giving lectures and many of his books have been translated into English, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Korean and more. His recent awards include the Kobayashi Hideo Prize (2023), the Yomiuri Prize for Literature (2019) and the Watanabe Junichi Literary Prize (2017). He is presented together with Columbia University Press in celebration of the release of his debut novel, Eclipse, for the first time in America. His other books translated into English include A Man (2020) and At the End of the Matinee (2021).

The night will then conclude with a reception where you’re welcome to mix and mingle with fellow book lovers.

About Eclipse
In the late fifteenth century, a young Dominican friar sets out on a journey from Paris to Florence in search of manuscripts of pre-Christian philosophy. Along the way, he encounters an ascetic alchemist in a small village. As the young man falls under the spell of the alchemist’s quest for enlightenment, a series of disasters—culminating in a total solar eclipse—strikes the village, with profound consequences. Keiichiro Hirano’s Eclipse was a meteoric literary sensation when it first appeared in 1998. Its author, still an undergraduate, was hailed as a prodigy, and the book received the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award. Set on the eve of the Renaissance in Europe, Eclipse depicts a society that is on the surface vastly different from modern Japan. Yet its account of a challenge to dualistic binaries and ossified worldviews holds striking contemporary resonance and philosophical depth. Taking the form of a memoir, Eclipse brings together an evocative portrayal of its historical setting, including the lore of medieval alchemy, with a rich literary lexicon, lush imagery and psychological intricacy. This vivid translation offers Anglophone readers a vital work by one of Japan’s most distinctive voices. Translated by Brent de Chene and Charles De Wolf. Eclipse will be available in the U.S. beginning November 12 for $20.

This event is part of University Press Week 2024, which this year celebrates the many ways university presses help authors share ideas that shape conversations around the world. Japan Society partners with Columbia University Press and other university presses to amplify voices like Keiichiro Hirano this week and year-round.

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Japanese Literature Night at Japan Society is generously supported by a grant from the Toshiba International Foundation and Yen Press.

Japan Society programs are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Additional support for cultural programs is provided by an anonymous donor and the Sandy Heck Lecture Fund.