TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japanese mystery crime novels, once underrepresented in the English-speaking world, are enjoying a growing presence in the British thriller category.
The frontrunner is crime writer Kotaro Isaka, whose works have been shortlisted for the British Crime Writers’ Association awards twice within three years.
This year, his novel “Ax” (in English “The Mantis”) was nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, which honors outstanding crime novels, including spy and adventure novels.
The British publisher Pushkin Press, known among other things for publishing Japanese works by crime writer Seishi Yokomizu, won this year’s CWA Daggers Award in the publishing category, thereby increasing the presence of Japanese crime novels abroad.
In May, Japanese crime fans rejoiced when the CWA nominated Isaka’s “Ax” for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, one of the most coveted of the 13 internationally renowned Dagger awards. Four of the six finalists in this category were US authors, with Missouri-born Jordan Harper winning with his Hollywood-set novel “Everybody Knows”. The Steel Dagger category was created in 2002 in honour of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series.
Although no Japanese author has ever won a CWA Dagger Award, Isaka is moving closer to the award after also being nominated for his novel “Maria Beetle” (“Bullet Train”), which was shortlisted for Crime Fiction in Translation in 2022. “Bullet Train” was made into a film starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Leitch.
“It was very rare for an Asian work to make it to the finals in the Steel Dagger category,” said book critic Matsukoi Sugie of “The Mantis,” which wittily portrays a henpecked hero who leads a double life as a skilled assassin.
“Ever since I started reading crime fiction, I’ve viewed The Daggers as an incredible award from a faraway land. It feels like a dream come true to be shortlisted (again),” Isaka said in a statement.
Sugie noted that The Mantis’ setting was “very acceptable” in the UK and praised the work for its humanism and vivid foreboding, hallmarks of Isaka’s work.
While contemporary Japanese writers such as Haruki Murakami and Mieko Kawakami are popular in the UK and the US, Japanese crime novels with their intricate storylines tend to struggle to gain traction abroad.
However, at a time when content is consumed worldwide via streaming services and other channels, foreign titles in the mystery genre are enjoying increasing acceptance.
Last year’s Dagger Awards featured two unexpected Japanese nominees in the crime novel in translation category: “Lady Joker” (1997) by Kaoru Takamura and “The Tattoo Murder” by Akimitsu Takagi (1948).
“Lady Joker” tells a fictional story inspired by the real-life extortion case of candy maker Ezaki Glico in the 1980s and paints a grim portrait of post-war Japan.
In contrast, “The Tattoo Murder” is a legendary Japanese crime thriller of the “locked room” variety, which involves a crime committed under extraordinary circumstances in which the perpetrator enters and leaves the crime scene undetected.
Pushkin Press, which translates and publishes “The Tattoo Murder” as well as works by Yokomizo, who is best known for the Kosuke Kindaichi crime series, including “The Honjin Murders” and “Death on Gokumon Island,” won this year’s Dagger Award in the publishing category.
Daniel Seton of Pushkin believes interest in Japanese crime novels is only growing in the UK. “Japan has such a rich crime culture – there is so much more for British readers to discover and we want to help them do that,” said Seton.
(By Ryoko Ando and Sho Hirakawa)
