[Special Feature: Encountering Books] Shigeru Hamamoto: The Japan Booksellers' Award is an Annual Festival that Creates Opportunities to Encounter Books!

2023/08/08

The Japan Booksellers' Award was born from idle chatter at a bar. It all started in January 2003. Voices of disappointment spread among bookstore clerks who were eagerly awaiting the announcement of the 128th Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes.

The biannual announcement of the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes is a peak sales period for bookstores. Among the many literary awards, the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes are the most prestigious and result in the highest sales for the winning works. Staff in charge of literary fiction had ordered the candidate works in advance and were waiting with bated breath for the announcement. However, the Akutagawa Prize was awarded to Tamaki Daido's "Shoppai Drive." It was published in the magazine "Bungakukai," and the standalone book had not yet been released. Furthermore, the Naoki Prize—which is expected to sell even better than the pure literature of the Akutagawa Prize—had no winner! For bookstore clerks, the result was that they literally had no books to sell.

The Naoki Prize that year was particularly controversial. Hideo Yokoyama's "Han-ochi," which had swept the previous year-end's Weekly Bunshun Mystery Best 10 and "This Mystery is Excellent!" and was considered the heavy favorite, was rejected after flaws in the novel were pointed out. While Yokoyama's declaration of a break with the Naoki Prize caused a stir, it is also worth noting that five of the six nominated authors, excluding Yokoyama, later went on to win the Naoki Prize. They were a group of talented individuals and the most popular writers of the day. All six had a suitable number of previously published books, and no matter who won, the bookstore shelves would have surely been bustling.

That is why the disappointment of the bookstore clerks was so deep. What were the organizers of the Naoki Prize thinking by having no winner? The publishing industry had reached its sales peak in 1996 and was in the midst of a decline in 2003. In 2000, Amazon had opened its Japanese site, and physical bookstores were feeling a sense of crisis. Despite this, one of the opportunities for a fair that could draw people to bookstores and promote backlist titles had been lost.

For a while, it was only natural that the Naoki Prize became the topic of conversation over drinks for bookstore clerks and publishing house sales reps. One such night, the topic of establishing an award arose among the clerks: "If that's the case, why don't we create an award ourselves?"

At the time, books like "Crying Out Love in the Center of the World" and "A Dog Named Christmas" (Shiroi Inu to Waltz wo) had become million-sellers triggered by a single handwritten POP display created by a bookstore clerk. It was a period when the "selling power" of bookstore clerks was being rediscovered. "That sounds interesting. Let's gather some colleagues," someone who took it seriously said. "Alright, let's give it a try." Since no one had ever managed an award before, they had nothing to fear. They didn't think about it being impossible or too difficult. A meeting was convened in no time, and the decision was made to establish an award chosen by bookstore clerks.

The official name of the new award was decided as the "Japan Booksellers' Award: The Number One Book We Want to Sell! Chosen by Bookstore Clerks Nationwide." It was decided that the "Number One Book We Want to Sell" would be chosen from Japanese novels published within the year through a vote by bookstore clerks. To ensure it didn't end up as a mere popularity contest, a system of two rounds of voting was established. Meetings were held late at night after everyone finished work, and nine months after the idle chatter at the bar, the first round of voting began. With the spread of the internet making it easier to vote, more votes than imagined poured in from all over the country.

The first award, announced in April 2004, was won by Yoko Ogawa's "The Housekeeper and the Professor." With this year's 2023 winner, Yu Nagira's "Like the Stars, You," the Japan Booksellers' Award has reached its 20th year. During this time, almost all the winning works have topped the annual sales charts for literary fiction and have been adapted for film or television. True to its name, the "Number One Book We Want to Sell" became the number one best-selling book.

In a booklet titled "20 Years of the Japan Booksellers' Award" created to commemorate the 20th anniversary, past winning authors contributed short pieces on the theme "Bookstores are made of ____." The 9th award winner, Shion Miura, wrote, "Bookstores are made of 'love and curiosity.'" The 15th award winner, Mizuki Tsujimura, wrote, "Bookstores are made of 'unknown doors.'" The 18th award winner, Sonoko Machida, wrote, "Bookstores are made of 'coincidence, fate, and necessity.'" If you open an unknown door—that is, the page of a book—you can go to any world. You can go to distant foreign lands, the future, or the past, and you can live many different lives. Ms. Machida concluded by saying, "Bookstores have a vast number of doors. Coincidence, fate, and necessity are all there."

To get people to open the vast number of doors in a bookstore, we must first get them to visit the store. The original purpose of the Japan Booksellers' Award was to hold a festival at the storefront! The main focus is to make people think, "Something interesting seems to be happening, so I'll go to the bookstore." Finding an unknown book at the store and being drawn to the title, cover design, or the blurb on the wrap-around band to pick it up—encountering unknown books one after another is something unique to physical bookstores. Whether it is coincidence, fate, or necessity, I want to believe that the Japan Booksellers' Award is functioning as an annual festival to provide the spark for such encounters.