There are a number of prizes that have been awarded to great writers, such as the Akutagawa Prize, the Mishima Yuki Prize, and the Tanizaki Junichiro Prize, but I think we are forgetting one important person in all of them.
That is, Mr. Soseki Natsume. The Soseki Natsume Award is an unlikely prize.
In 1946, a company called Sakuragiku Shobo created the award to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Soseki Natsume’s death.
The first prize was awarded to a novel by Watanabe Goro titled “The Orchard of Novarsa” (unfortunately, it has disappeared).
This Soseki Natsume Award. For some reason, the award ended after its first edition (the selection committee members, including Mushanokouji Saneatsu, were all very distinguished).
There was a long hiatus after that, and in 1968, Kawade Shobo created the second edition of the award, but it was aborted when the organizer, Kawade Shobo, went bankrupt.
As a novelist who admires Soseki Natsume, it is very sad that nearly 50 years have passed since then and there is no prize bearing the name of Soseki Natsume, who was once even given a bill of exchange.
So, since we are in the 2025 era and 100 years have passed since his death, don’t you think it is about time to revive the Natsume Soseki Prize?
The Natsume Soseki Prize should not be sponsored by a single company, such as Bungeishunju, which sponsors the Akutagawa Prize, or Shinchosha, which sponsors the Mishima Yuki-sho, but should be co-sponsored by the entire publishing industry as the most prestigious prize, with all the power of the literary world.
The award should be so prestigious that it should be given in such a big way, especially since it bears the name Soseki Natsume.
Furthermore, how about awarding the prize to an individual writer who is still alive (it is meaningless to honor a person who has passed away), like the Nobel Prize, rather than to a work of art like other prizes? In other words, like the Sawamura Prize in baseball.
I have always wondered what can be done about the fact that many people have the impression that the biggest awards in Japan are somehow the Akutagawa Award and the Naoki Award. These prizes are only for newcomers.
In other countries, the most prestigious prize in the literary world is so clearly defined that even Japanese who do not know much about literature have heard of it.
In the United Kingdom, it is the Booker Prize, in France the Goncourt Prize, and in the United States the Pulitzer Prize.
These barriers between publishers have long since been broken down.
However, I feel that it is somewhat sad that there is no such thing as Japan’s largest prize for literature.
And if the Natsume Soseki Prize were to be established, who would be the winner of the prestigious first prize? Just thinking about it is exciting. Kenzaburo Oe, Haruki Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, Ryu Murakami, Kenzo Kitakata, Nahoko Uehashi, Kenji Nakagami, Shintaro Ishihara….
The list of nominees is long.
Among them, Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, who have not won the Akutagawa Prize, should be honored in a big way by the Japanese literary industry as a whole by now.
I would like to ask bookstores to select the winners, but there is also the Honya Taisho award, so I think it would be appropriate for readers to cast their votes freely on the Internet. In other words, as an award within an award, chosen by the authors who have won each publisher’s award.
Then, as a prize for the winning author, each publisher would publish a related feature article. A fair will be held for one year. How about the company that publishes the most works by that author compiles a complete collection?
I am writing about my own imagination, but I believe that the creation of the prestigious Natsume Soseki Prize would not be a loss for the writer, the publishers, or the stagnant literary world.
Well, I will never receive it….
See you later.
