Mitsuyo Kakuta

Mitsuyo Kakuta ( Japanese 角 田 光 代 , Kakuta Mitsuyo ; born March 8, 1967 in Yokohama ) is a Japanese writer. She was awarded the Naoki Prize in 2005.

Life

Kakuta studied from 1985 to 1989 at the philological faculty (Bungakubu) of Waseda University . During her academic training, she wrote "girls' novels" ( 少女 小説 , shōjo shōsetsu ). In 1990 Kakuta applied with Kofuku na yūgi for the Kaien debut award, which was awarded to her. In 1996 she received the Noma Literature Prize ( Noma Bungei Shinjin Shō ) for Madoromu yoru no UFO ( ま ど ろ む 夜 の UFO, German "The UFO of a slumber night" ). In 2002 she published the texts Economical Palace ( エ コ ノ ミ カ ル ・ パ レ ス , Ekonomikaru paresu ) and Kūchū Teien ( 空中 庭園 , German "A hanging garden"). For the latter she won the Fujinkon Literature Prize . She received the prestigious Naoki Prize for Taigan no Kanojo ( 対 岸 の 彼女 , 2004; The Woman on the Other Shore ) in 2005, the Kawabata-Yasunari Literature Prize for Rock Haha ( ロ ッ ク 母 , Rokku Haha , 2006). Kakuta was one of the writers in the “Publishing Metropolis Tokyo” project who represented the Japanese side during the Year of Germany in Japan 2005/2006. She is married to the writer Takami Itō (* 1971) and lives in Tōkyō .

Literary work

Kakuta Mitsuyo is initially attracting greater attention under the “ J-Bungaku ” label . In the photos of the J-Bungaku campaign by Kawade Shobō Shinsha , Mitsuyo Kakuta can often be seen as the face that ideally represents the concept of young Japanese literature. The map of Japanese literature of the 1990s in the Bungei Bessatsu issue J-Bungaku. '90 -nendai bungaku mappu (1998) locates Kakuta, who is often called a “ freeter author”, in the “datsuryoku furītā-kei zōn”. The reference to the furītā-kei zōn given in the booklet edited by Kawade can also be found in further comments on Kakuta's texts.

In Kakuta's “Freeter novels” (see Freeter literature ) the protagonists are students and / or young Tokyotians who earn their living through various jobs (Japanese arubaito ); Kakuta's heroes are looking for meaning, for what they “want to do” in their lives. The author often deals with the constellations “individual and fellow human”, “individual and family”, “individual and society”, “individual and place” and - since Niwa no Sakura, Tonari no Inu ( 庭 の 桜 、 隣 の 犬 , dt. “The cherry trees in the garden, the dog next door”, 2004) and Taigan no Kanojo - the topic of “couple relationships”.

Mitsuyo Kakuta is a typical representative of the new Japanese literary scene, she masters the balancing act between “sophisticated literature” and entertainment. A particularly successful text is Kakuta's “Economical Palace”, in which the author paints a gloomy portrait of a generation of university graduates with no future. In its critique of a cold Japanese society that is only fixated on money and populated by egomaniacs who are incapable of communication, the novel is reminiscent of the Bubblonia portraits by Natsuo Kirino . Critics recognize Kakuta's psychograms as accurate studies of the modern Japanese self. In fact, the author's texts reveal the current changes in this modern self and with them the decade-specific sensitivities of the urban middle class, who feel the threat of decline. Kakuta adopts a somewhat easier pace in her essay volumes, in the travel descriptions and in her short stories.

literature

• Lisette Gebhardt : “Freeter Literature”? A look at Kakuta Mitsuyo . In: Asian Studies, Special Issue : Japanese Writers 1890-2006 , Eduard Klopfenstein (Ed.), LXI, 2, 2007, pp. 643–660.

Web links

• Lisette Gebhardt: Kakuta Mitsuyo: A literary psychogram of Japanese freeter culture - the debut work “Happy Games” . (2006, homepage of Japanologie Frankfurt, J-Bungaku working group / reviews)