Introducing Natsuki Ikezawa

Regarded as one of the best serious writers in Japan, Natsuki Ikezawa started his career as a poet and translator after he studied physics at Saitama University. He moved to Greece in 1975 and lived there for three years, introducing the films of Theo Angelopoulos to the Japanese audience.

Ikezawa published his first novel in 1984, and his second one titled Sutiru Raifu (Still Lives) won the Chuo Koron Shinjin Prize and then the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1988. Since then, he has received numerous major literary awards in Japan including the Tanizaki Prize in 1993 for Mashiasu Giri no Sikkyaku (The Navidad Incident:The Downfall of Matías Guili); the Ito Sei Literary Award in 1994 for Tanoshii Shumatsu (The Happy End of the World); the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award in 2000 for Hana wo Hakobu Imouto (A Burden of Flowers); the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2001 for Subarashii Shinsekai (A Wonderful New World); and the Shinran Prize in 2004 for Shizukana Daichi and a series of lectures Sekaibungaku wo Yomihodoku in 2004 (Quiet Earth and Decoding World Literature). He was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 2007. Many of his works have been translated into French and German.

Ikezawa is one of the most outspoken literary figures in Japan, frequently addressing political and social issues. His novels also deal with the voice of the minorities. In Shizukana Daichi, mentioned above, he writes about the early settlers of Hokkaido—where Ikezawa was born in 1945 and raised until he was six years old—and their encounter with the indigenous people, the Ainu. Ikezawa’s deep sympathy toward the history and culture of the Ainu sheds new light on the multiethnic and multicultural roots of Japan, which is often defined as a homogenous society.

Equipped with literary imagination and the eye of a physicist, Ikezawa is also an avid traveler and a renowned essayist. Having lived as a writer in Greece (Athens), France (Fontainebleau), and Japan (Okinawa and Sapporo), he has published more than fifty books of travel essays, nature writings, and book reviews. What matters most here is that Sekaibungaku wo Yomihodoku (Decoding World Literature: From Stendhal to Pynchon), mentioned above, includes a chapter on Melville, in which he redefines Moby-Dick as a database. Ikezawa’s speculations on World Literature resulted in his single-handedly editing the thirty-volume Anthology of World Literature (2007–2011) from Kawade Shobo Shinsha, a major publisher in Japan. This anthology sold more than 400,000 copies, an achievement that was celebrated in the publishing industry, leading him to edit yet another thirty-volume Anthology of Japanese Literature (2014-the present).