Hiroshi Hayakawa: First in Asia to Receive the London Book Fair "International Lifetime Achievement Award"

It is an award given annually by 24 judges of the London Book Fair to individuals who have contributed to culture, primarily in publishing, over a long period. It covers publishers, literary agents, editors, scouts, and so on. I received the news from London on February 25th and was surprised myself. It was truly a bolt from the blue. Looking at past recipients, the list includes prominent publishers such as the president of Gallimard in France and the president of Alfred A. Knopf in the United States.

Hayakawa Publishing, founded by my father, Kiyoshi Hayakawa, in 1945, has introduced foreign books to Japan, mainly from the UK and US, but also from France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. This August marks the 77th anniversary of our founding. I believe these activities were recognized.

That seems to be the case. Since I am carrying on the work my father started, I interpret it as an evaluation of the book culture of Hayakawa Publishing as a whole, not just myself.

My paternal grandfather was born in Kyobashi and ran a military supply factory. My father was an only child and a book lover to the core. Before he was even old enough to remember, his grandparents took him to Kabuki, movie theaters, and yose (vaudeville) theaters, so he became familiar with culture and art. Furthermore, since my grandfather's factory was destroyed in the war, he decided to pursue the publishing he had always wanted to do. He was 30 years old. I heard that my father loved theater and founded Hayakawa Publishing because he wanted to publish plays and theater books by authors like Arthur Miller and Edward Albee.

When I was in the second or third grade of elementary school, my father took me by the hand to the Kabuki-za to see Onoe Kikugoro VI perform "Kagamijishi." He told me to burn the image of this master actor and his dance into my eyelids, but after seeing it, I was so terrified. I couldn't sleep for three days and nights after that.

That's right. When I was a student at Keio, I often went to pick up Mr. Toyoo Iwata (Bunroku Shishi), a senior alumnus of Keio and the supervisor of "Higeki Kigeki" which my father had long desired to publish, at his home in Akasaka for editorial meetings. I also drove theater critic Hirotsugu Ozaki and another senior Keio alumnus, Koji Toita.

I also acted as a driver to take Mr. Yukio Mishima to a roundtable discussion for "Higeki Kigeki." The conversation in the car left a deep impression on me. It was when Mr. Mishima received an honorary doctorate from Columbia University. Since it had been a while since he was in New York, he went to a bookstore in Times Square and saw a sign that said "Japanese pornography Just Arrived." When he wondered what Japanese porn it could be, it turned out to be Junichiro Tanizaki's "The Key." He said, "I wonder what face Mr. Tanizaki would have made if he were still alive."

During my university days, I was very interested in British and American culture, art, and sports in general. I listened to American popular songs from morning till night—EP records of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, and then Elvis Presley and Pat Boone. The English of these singers was very easy to understand, and I admired how cool and stylish their phrasing was, thinking it would be great to speak English like that. I thought if I could imitate them even a little, I might be a bit more popular with women (laughs).

In my fourth year of university, the 18th Tokyo Olympics were coming up, and I wanted to get involved in the Olympics somehow. So I took the exam for official English interpreters and successfully became the interpreter for the head of the Jamaican delegation. The Jamaican athletes were very proud and excellent. Most of them were attending or had graduated from American universities, and on top of that, since it was a former British colony, they spoke Queen's English. They were a group of athletes who truly embodied the balance of literary and military arts.

Years later, on the campus of Columbia University, someone hugged me saying, "The world is small!" I braced myself thinking it was an attacker, but it was the Jamaican athlete I had interpreted for three years earlier at the Olympics. He was in the Doctoral Programs at Columbia University.

Yes, that's right. When I consulted my father, he said he would let me go abroad for a year, so in the summer of 1966, I entered the English Intensive Course at Columbia University. However, my father felt that just doing English would be problematic for appearances in front of the other employees. He said if I was going, I should go to New York, the center of world publishing, and at the same time witness film, theater, and the economy firsthand.

For one year after graduating in 1965, I did accounting at the company. Even if I met authors or visited publishers and agents in New York, it would be useless if I didn't know what kind of books sell at Hayakawa Publishing. We decided that working in accounting was the best way to know the whole company. I'm not good at accounting, so I struggled quite a bit.

Once I got to New York, telegrams would come every three days from the employees in Tokyo saying, "Go to this publisher. This book is selling well, so please investigate and let us know. A new author like this has appeared, so read the work and give us your impressions." So I didn't have much time for school (laughs). By visiting publishers and agents like that, editors, rights managers, and marketing people took it upon themselves to educate the young man from Japan, teaching me the difficulties, joys, and excitement of publishing step-by-step. It seems my father had also sent letters, but it was what we now call an internship, and it is still the most useful experience I've had.

I was about the only young guy from a Japanese publishing house charging over there and making the rounds. However, no matter how much the other party said, "This is interesting, it's being made into a movie," I couldn't buy the rights without first reading the manuscript and being convinced myself.

I was especially careful when reading works by new authors. Looking at their future potential, sometimes you need the resolve to sink or swim with that author. While listening to the editor, I would judge whether to buy the translation rights while thinking about whether this author would be popular in Japan, who the translator should be, what the title should be, and how to place newspaper advertisements. First and foremost, it is essential that I myself am impressed or moved.

For example, if it's a mafia story, there's Mario Puzo's "The Godfather." If it's a disaster story, Peter Benchley's "Jaws." For SF, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov. For mysteries, Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler. For behavioral economics, Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman; for philosophy, Michael Sandel. There are certainly archetypes or prototypes.

But you don't realize that immediately. It takes five or six years to finally understand that something is a prototype. To find such authors and works, you have to read them yourself and listen to people. At the same time, cool-headed judgment is indispensable. Something that sells in the US might not sell in Japan, and of course, the reverse is also true. The final decision on whether to buy translation rights is left to me as the representative of the company, and it's natural for the rights holders to wait for my answer.

Fifty years ago, when I visited a New York publisher called Harper & Row, one of the world's leading mystery editors recommended a book from another company, saying, "There's an author like this in Boston, why don't you read it?" That was the first book in the famous private detective Spenser series created by Robert B. Parker. Mr. Ken Takakura was very keen on making a movie of one of the books in that series, "Early Autumn," starring himself, but it was a great pity that it couldn't be realized. Ed McBain's "87th Precinct" series book "King's Ransom" also caught Director Akira Kurosawa's eye and was made into a movie.

My father always told me to have a pioneer spirit and follow an original path. That's why he termed detective stories as "mysteries" and fantasy science stories as "SF" (Science Fiction). That is said to be at the very core of Hayakawa.

However, I believe our mission is to introduce interesting authors and scholars to Japan from as wide a range of fields as possible as quickly as possible, so I want to publish not only mysteries and SF but also pure literature, philosophy, and science readings with general appeal.

This was a great hope of my father's and a publishing project as well. In 1962, we launched a series called "Hayakawa Library," and one of the books was ethologist Konrad Lorenz's "King Solomon's Ring" (1963). From there, we began publishing natural sciences, or what is now called popular science.

In the English catalog for overseas that our company produces every year, we state "Intelligent Entertainment for the New Century." In other words, we aim to publish things that are interesting and stir intellectual excitement. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction, being interesting to read is one of our criteria for publishing.

During a business trip to New York, an agent showed me "A Brief History of Time," saying, "This is an astrophysics book that will be traded at high prices in the US and UK from now on." I immediately bought the translation rights and brought it back to Japan like a trophy, but the editor's response was blunt: "What is this! We've never published a book like this, and we don't have a translator suitable for this content." At the time, Stephen Hawking was completely unknown in Japan. Since I had already secured the rights, I said, "Please, just do it" (laughs). But it quickly became a huge sensation and a bestseller in the UK and US. That heat soon reached Japan. Thanks to that, it surpassed one million copies.

Perhaps. It can be troublesome sometimes. They say, "You're the person in charge. Make a decision right here" (laughs).

"Jaws" was like that. I was given the manuscript and told, "Read it immediately. If you dither, I'll sell it to another publisher." They said Steven Spielberg would direct it, but he was almost unknown at the time. However, both the book and the movie became huge hits in the US immediately, and I was teased later, "I lost out by giving you the translation rights at such a bargain" (laughs).

It would have to be Michael Crichton of "Jurassic Park." Since we were the same age, we got along well, or rather, there were many parts that touched each other's heartstrings.

The first time we met was when I invited him for the Hayakawa International Forum in 1993. I met him at Narita Airport and took him straight to the "Amanoya Ryokan" in Yugawara. The two of us got into a cypress bath, lined up sake bottles in the tub, and talked about literature, film, cultural theory, and various other topics. He was a giant of a man, over two meters tall, but he was a very considerate person. When he returned to the US, thank-you letters arrived for every employee who had helped him during his stay in Japan. He had that kind of delicate sensitivity. And this is a world-famous author. That genius, who excelled in everything, passed away at the age of 66. It's a great pity, especially since we were the same age.

I was blessed with teachers, friends, and fellow members of the Athletic Association Track and Field Club, and had a fulfilling four years. Even if our faculties are different, I am on close terms with seniors, peers, and juniors. And since 2014, I have served as a councilor. I was also recommended as a trustee, which has deepened my relationship with the university. Starting with many professors, my circle of acquaintances has widened, and I feel very happy.

As the oldest private school in Japan and a comprehensive university with a School of Medicine, we must further enhance liberal arts education for first and second-year students. In fact, it is gratifying that the school and the teachers are moving in that direction.

When I talk to students from the US, UK, and EU who are interning at publishers and agents abroad, they have very broad knowledge and have studied not only literature but also law extensively.

I believe that the licensing and content business will become a very important core for publishers in the future. Generating profit by selling or lending copyrights. Especially in the US, UK, and France, they sell the rights to turn original works into films or TV shows to Hollywood. Recently, Netflix has been paying vast amounts of money to buy broadcasting rights.

I believe that the culture of the written word will not die out for the time being. Publishers that have many classics—works that are read for a long time—will have a distinct advantage and will naturally be highly evaluated. Even now, the best-selling author in Japan is probably Soseki Natsume. Publishers like Knopf in the US and Gallimard in France also possess an astonishing number of classics.

I believe my passion is second to none. But I do have a tendency to get a bit heated (laughs). When I feel I absolutely must secure an author or buy the rights, I can't sit still.

For example, Cormac McCarthy of "All the Pretty Horses." He is unproductive and only writes one work every five or six years. Also, Margaret Atwood from Canada, who wrote "The Handmaid's Tale." I think I can be a little proud of having secured such authors.