Book News: Asuka Mochizuli Wins Random/Kodansha New Writer’s Award

by Michael Rogers -- Library Journal, 11/28/2007 6:56:00 AM

Asuka Mochizuki has won the first Random House Kodansha New Writer’s Award for her novel Spinning Tropics, which is being released in Japan in December with an English translation coming from Knopf in 2008. “Asuka Mochizuki possesses a voice that is completely her own,” said Akhiro Miyata, senior editor at Random House Kodansha. “She has a keen eye for observing people and places, and in Spinning Tropics, she captures in a single storyline all the social and economic changes that are transforming an entire city at lightning speed.” Mochizuki’s work, which depicts an affair between two women, was selected from a field of 250 submissions.

Random said that the award, a joint venture between itself and Japan’s Kodansha, was established “to broaden the audience for Japanese literature in America and around the world.” Two finalists for this year’s award were: Terumi Ojima, for his novel Hermaphrodite’s Temperature; and Ryosuke Hamura, for his novel Tri-Colored Panda Is Always Grumpy.