Arts & Entertainment

Japan celebrates writer Haruki Murakami’s Asturias Award win

Tokyo, May 25 (EFE).- Japanese fans and media on Thursday celebrated Haruki Murakami after the writer won Spain’s prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for Literature.

The Princess of Asturias Foundation announced on Wednesday that the jury had chosen Murakami for “the uniqueness of his literature, its universal scope and ability to reconcile Japanese tradition and the legacy of Western culture in an ambitious and innovative narrative.”

Most of Japan’s news outlets trumpeted the win on Thursday, with public broadcaster NHK saying this is the first time a Japanese person has been given the literature award.

Across social media networks, the author’s fans also celebrated the victory by recalling some of his favorite novels.

“Haruki Murakami is the first Japanese to win the literary category of Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award, which is said to be the most prestigious award in Europe. I am very happy,” wrote one Twitter user.

Murakami has been translated into 50 languages and has received other international literary awards such as the 2006 World Fantasy Award for “Kafka on the Shore” and the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, as well as Japanese prizes such as the Noma, the Tanizaki and the Yomiuri.

Japanese nationals have won other categories of the Princess of Asturias – then called the Prince of Asturias – such as the astronaut Chaiki Mukai, who was awarded the International Cooperation award in 1999, while engineer Shuji Nakamura and physicist Sumio Iijima shared a 2008 award for Technical and Scientific Research.

In 2011, the Heroes of Fukushima, a group workers at the nuclear power plant and emergency personnel in charge of minimizing the effects and serious consequences of the nuclear disaster, received an Asturias in the Concord category.

Other winners are the Nintendo video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto (2012) and the architect Shigeru Ban (2022). EFE

emg-yk/tw

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