Opening a New Chapter: Book Events Return to Japan Society

Book events have returned to Japan Society in full force, beginning in fall 2024 with a literary renaissance spearheaded by the new Culture & Community Program, organized and implemented by its Director, Peter Tatara, together with Culture & Community Associate Hannah Lee.

“Culture & Community’s focus is on presenting accessible Japanese content and culture with a wide appeal here in New York,” Peter said. “Japan Society hasn’t celebrated books for a very long time and it feels great to be reconnecting with publishers and authors in New York City, one of the great publishing centers of the world. When you have an author who debuts in New York, it adds a level of prestige. So many authors who’ve gone on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, or the Booker or Pulitzer prizes, have built their reputations working with publishers in New York. It would be a disservice to the Japanese literary community if we didn’t do anything for them at Japan Society. And,of course, contemporary Japanese literature is definitely having a moment.”

“Japan’s enthusiasm for cozy books, especially cozy books featuring cats, has really caught on in the rest of the world,” noted Hannah. “That’s relatively new even in Japan, because for the longest time Japanese women readers weren’t taken seriously as a selling demographic. The cozy cat genre is a very specific aesthetic that draws a Tumblr-type cat-loving audience. After Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, the #5 bestselling print book between 2004 and 2001, and the phenomenon of Fifty Shades of Grey, publishers began to translate books for women in demographics outside of literary fiction. That’s where the cozy cat genre comes in, and also books like Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, another Japanese cozy hit. A lot of Japanese fiction being translated into English tends to be women’s fiction and that, in turn, ends up being 40 to 50 percent of the U.S. and UK markets for translated fiction.”

Fall 2024 literary events at Japan Society, all of which included book sales and signings, began with a talk by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, the bestselling author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, introducing his latest work Before We Forget Kindness. Jake Adelstein (Tokyo Vice), no stranger to Japan Society’s programming roster, spoke about his latest book, Tokyo Noir: In and Out of Japan’s Underworld, at a sold-out event. We hosted Public Radio’s Selected Shorts series in a night of Japanese literature, with short stories by three contemporary Japanese writers read live onstage—Keiichiro Hirano’s interview (in Japanese) was recorded at Japan Society when he was here for Lit Night. Debut author Natalie Anna Jacobson launched the yokai fantasy Ghost Train, her first book for young adults, followed by a conversation with Sonoko Sakai, author of Wafu Cooking. And anime enthusiasts at the special film and lecture series Foreign Exchange: Anime Inspirations & Visionaries with LeSean Thomas were able to purchase signed copies of a limited edition of Foreign Exchange: The TV Anime Creations of LeSean Thomas Vol. 1—Yasuke.

“It’s been really amazing seeing how these events are reaching people outside of New York, with someone in the audience coming from Washington, DC for Jake Adelstein and, for Kawaguchi, from both Guatemala and Germany! Being able to meet authors in person these days is a rare opportunity for any book lover. And when we say that a book is for a certain kind of person, it actually appeals to everyone, because we all have very human feelings. At the Kawaguchi event, for example, about half the crowd were 50-year-old salarymen, and they were really enjoying themselves and buying lots of books,” Hannah declared.

“We’re getting a lot of new people at these book events, people who are coming to Japan Society for the first time,” Peter noted. “That’s part of Culture & Community’s mission, to bring new people to the Society to discover the best of Japanese culture in New York City. We’re also building out our relationships with publishers who, so far, have been very happy with their experience here. We’re not a venue that’s just a table in a bookstore, we’re a partner who is truly invested in their success. For our next season, we’re also looking deeper into the publishing industry, at the translators and editors who are integral to the process of bringing Japanese books to English-speaking audiences. That’s not in an academic sense, it’s about talking with the people who work in this world because they love it. We’ve had audience members at signings ask whether the translator was present, because they would also like them to sign their book, so we’re responding to those requests insofar as it’s possible. One often repeated request is for a book club. We’re not making any promises but that’s one of the things that we’re gaming out for next year under the ‘Community’ aspect of our program’s mission.”

“Another exciting thing that’s happening is a connection with PEN America (pen.org), the venerable organization for writers which had originally reached out to our Development team to see about possible collaboration on membership and co-promotion. To make a long story short, Japan Society is now working with PEN on membership opportunities, and Culture & Community is busy exploring joint opportunities in the literary world from this well-connected new alliance. You might well ask what got this all started—it was the American Manga Awards—co-hosted by Japan Society and Anime NYC for the first time last August—that put Japan Society on PEN America’s radar and opened another chapter in the book of Culture & Community, one that’s still being written and that we hope to share with all of you soon.”