Jose Ando's rapid rise from first pages to the Akutagawa Prize
Three years is all it took for Jose Ando to go from writing his first pages of fiction to winning the most prestigious literary prize in Japan.
'I started writing novels one year before my debut story (was published) two years ago,' Ando tells The Japan Times from the offices of Kawade Shobo Shinsha, publisher of his Akutagawa Prize-winning novel 'Dtopia.' 'I thought of a story in my head, and wanted to make a novel that was all my own.'
The 30-year-old writer says the novels he knew as a child growing up in Tokyo were by the authors whose works appeared in his school curriculum. He only consumed the old classics, many with outdated notions that his teachers nonetheless instructed him to read.
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