TOKYO —

Iraninan writer Shirin Nezammafi was among the six nominees for the 141st Akutagawa Prize for new writers of serious fiction for her story written in Japanese, the award selection body said in a release dated Thursday. She is the third nominated writer who comes from a country that does not use Chinese characters. Chinese novelist Yang Yi won the same prize last year as the first non-native Japanese speaker. The 29-year-old’s nominated work, titled ‘‘Shiroi Kami’’ (White Paper), which won the 108th Bungakukai Shinjinsho award in April, depicts a romance between two students at the time of the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s.
   
Nezammafi, whose mother tongue is Persian, began learning Japanese while she was in high school in Tehran. After moving to Japan in 1999, she studied at Kobe University’s graduate school of engineering and currently works at a major electronics maker as a systems engineer, according to the organizer. She won a literary award for foreign students in 2006. The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature also nominated six authors including movie director Miwa Nishikawa, 34, for the 141st Naoki Prize, a major literature award for popular fiction. The prizewinners are expected to be announced after a screening committee meeting in Tokyo on July 15.

Kyodo

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2 Comments

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  GAYMAN at 10:09 PM JST - 2nd July

  token foreigner. should make the great and illustrious writer 'blinky' happy he always has an opinion. by the way, i saw saw an ad for one of his brother's movies on the train today. man, he was ugly.

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  fatfrenchfool at 10:10 PM JST - 2nd July

  a major achievement just to write a novel, let alone in a foreign language, on top of that it's nominated for naoki-sho. good luck

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