"University Readers Grand Prize" Decided

Thanks to the "morning reading" program in which Japanese students spend the first ten minutes of class time in silent reading each morning, reading among elementary and junior high school students has increased tremendously, but there are still fears that reading levels among high school and university students are on the decline. At universities, however, student literary clubs which conduct readings of leading books have created the "Student Readers' Prize" in hopes of spreading the world about selected works which they believe have real appeal. From the creation of a network to setting up a framework and administrative structure, the project is entirely student-run. Five works have now been nominated for the first grand prize, with the winning work expected to be announced in May.

The suggestion for a "University Reader's Grand Prize" came from the "Prix Goncourt des Lyceens," a student-based literary prize in France. Although derived from a contest based on the opinions of high school students, in this case the executive committee is composed of university students working in cooperation and with the support of the JPIC (Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture).

According to Jun Nakahara, head secretariat of the JCIP, "Even though time spent reading is important, a large number of university students simply don't get around to it. We learned about the Goncourt des Lyceens while looking for a way to motivate these students. Thinking that we should be able to apply this to Japan too, we decided to create a prize which would be based on university students in literature clubs, and so we began by establishing an executive committee.

On January 9, the five works selected were announced on the JCIP homepage, along with rules for the contest. The genre of the work is irrelevant as long as it is based in standard moveable-type print. The books range from pure literature to translations and cover a variety of genres such as light novels, science fiction, mysteries, children's books, nonfiction and comics.

A brief glance at the list reveals not the usual best sellers or popular authors like Haruki Murakami and Keigo Higashino, nor does it include standard top titles such as Kazuki Sakuraba's "My Man," a top five best seller and winner of the 138th Naoki Prize. Sakubara's "A Readers' Club for Youth" is on the list, however, allowing us to discern something about the tastes of university students who enjoy literature.

The five nominations for the Grand Prize:
1. "City of Salt" by Hiroshi Arikawa. Published by Media Works.
2. "The Decline of Mankind" by Romeo Tanaka. Published by Shogakkan Gagaga Bunko.
3. "A Readers' Club for Youth" by Kazuki Sakuraba. Published by Shinchôsha.
4. "1000 Stories and Backbeard" by Yûya Sato. Published by Shinchôsha.
5. "Childhood's End" by A.C. Clark. Translated by Makiko Ikeda. Published by Kôbunsha Koten Shinyaku Bunko.


*Some of the book titles are tentative translations.
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