Blog catapults Japan's new literary star

By YURI KAGEYAMA

AP Business Writer

Katsumi Kasahara / AP Photo

Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami answers questions during an interview with The Associated Press in Tokyo Wednesday, March 5, 2008. Just a few months ago, Kawakami was just another obscure singer. Today, she is Japan's biggest literary star - all because of a blog she started, rather casually, to promote her concerts and CDs.

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• Kawakami's blog

Her poetic, street-wise writing stood out so starkly among Internet diaries in Japan - which, like those around the world, tend to be more informative or gossipy than narrative - that she is now Japan's biggest literary star.

The 31-year-old won this year's Akutagawa Award - named for "Rashomon" author Ryunosuke Akutagawa - which is Japan's most prestigious honor for a new writer.

There are more blog posts in Japanese than any other language, according to Technorati Inc., which tracks nearly 113 million blogs globally. Last year, Technorati found 37 percent of all postings were in Japanese - about 1.5 million per day. Postings in English - from Americans, Britons, Australians and people in many other countries - accounted for 36 percent of the total.

Kawakami is unusual in the extent of her success. But Steve Weber, an American who has written about marketing books online, said Japanese writers are far ahead of Americans in making their work available on the Internet. Many have had successful books published after producing novels intended to be read on mobile phones, for example.

In the U.S., publishers are just starting to understand the market power that writers with hit blogs can wield, Weber said.

"Popular bloggers are definitely being targeted by smart publishers because the publishers realize that the authors have already done the hard work of book marketing," he said in an e-mail from Falls Church, Va. "They've attracted the audience."

U.S. bloggers who have been picked up by major publishers include Julie Powell, author of "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen," which chronicles attempts at Julia Child's classic recipes, and Colby Buzzell, a U.S. soldier in Iraq, who wrote "My War: Killing Time in Iraq."

Joichi Ito, Internet entrepreneur and Technorati board member, says Japanese tend to view blogs more as exchanges with friends and a personal outlet than as news sources as Americans do, for discussing politics, technology and other issues.

"More content in Japan is personal, and more content in the U.S. is media-like," he said.

Kawakami's readership has shot up from a handful of people when she started the blog in 2003, to about 10,000 a day, soaring to 200,000 on Jan. 16, the day she won the Akutagawa. She writes in frenzied, urgent prose that gurgles with furor.

"At first, the blog was the only place I had for my writing," she said, confident in her gaze, despite looking frail in a mini-dress. "You know how many people are accessing it, and so you know right away when you've written something that's drawing interest."

She started the blog to draw attention to her music, but the early entries became her first book. Her third book won the Akutagawa.

Despite her newly found fame, Kawakami - an admirer of American writers J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut and Jhumpa Lahiri - must still fight criticism from conservatives.

Shintaro Ishihara, the right-leaning governor of Tokyo, who won the Akutagawa in 1955 and sits on the awards committee, has lashed out at Kawakami's selection.

"The egocentric, self-absorbed rambling of the work is unpleasant and intolerable," he wrote in the magazine Bungeishunju, which administers the Akutagawa.

For the most part, however, Kawakami's voice is winning accolades for exploiting the drawling dialect of Osaka, the western city where she grew up, which is emerging as the hip language of modern-day Japan - the language of the standup comics and vernacular slang.

Adding to the appeal, Kawakami's award-winning novella, "The Breast and the Egg," explores the ideas of divorce, the questioning of beauty standards and other themes of solitary womanhood that are still relatively new territory in Japanese literature. Kawakami's stories in some ways are those of Japan's Everywoman.

For now, she said, she wants to stay away from stories of relationships with men and sexuality that characterized past Japanese female writing.

"It's about living, our body, the changes of the heart that accompany the body, the urgency, the problems being born, moment by moment," Kawakami said. "The fact that we are always doing our best at living."

Gridlock on the roads, snow and delays on the trains - Britain facing its worst ever Easter for traffic congestion

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The congestion peak is expected from midday tomorrow, when motorists are advised to allow 50 per cent more time for their journeys.

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And to add to the misery, a Siberian cold snap is due to hit Britain tomorrow.

Northerly winds will sweep in with wintry showers.

One reason for the expected crush is that many schools have reorganised their holidays, and the early Easter falls in term time.

As a result parents will be making a getaway as soon as school ends tomorrow, and traffic is also expected to be heavy late on Easter Monday as families rush back for school again on Tuesday.

Another factor is that amidst fears about the credit crunch, holidaymakers are shunning foreign shores in favour of holidays in Britain.

RAC research has shown nearly half of motorists are less likely to travel abroad this Easter compared with last year.

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Gridlock: This Easter is expected to have the worst ever traffic congestion

The AA's Routeplanner said key destinations would include Alton Towers, Longleat, Thorpe Park, Legoland, Drayton Manor and

Warwick Castle as well as Brighton, Bournemouth and Blackpool and the historic cities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Neil Thompson, from the RAC, said: "Easter is always one of our busiest periods of the year, but this Easter's getaway is expected to be more intense as motorists shun foreign travel in favour of domestic driving holidays.

"This combined with the short break for Easter will lead to a nightmare Maundy Thursday for motorists especially if the bad weather hits.

"Our advice is to leave extra time for journeys and, where possible, try to get away a few hours early to beat the rush."

AA patrolman of the year Adam Ashmore said: "Motorists might be under the impression that, due to the very early timing of Easter this year and the fragmentation of school holidays, the roads will be much quieter than usual, but we don't expect this to be the case.

"This year everyone hitting the road for an Easter break will be setting off at the same time and on similar routes region by region so congestion could potentially be worse than usual."

Tom Wright, chief executive of the national tourism agency VisitBritain, added: "The current economic outlook could mean British resorts are bracing themselves for bumper visitor numbers this Easter.

"Many families with school-age children have only four days to enjoy their Easter break this year so we're going to experience a concentrated few days of domestic travel.

"There's a real opportunity this year for Brits to rediscover what's on their own doorstep - just make sure you leave enough time to get there." Rail passengers face chaos, delays and cancellations to services over Easter as Network Rail carries out engineering work that will see shut-downs, closures and relief bus services on major lines.

After the serious New Year work overruns, Network Rail is under intense pressure to ensure the Easter projects are completed on time.

Euston station in London will be closed to Virgin West Coast services on Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.

If the weather conditions are bad, motorists are advised only to make journeys that are necessary and if they do travel to take extra precautions.

They are urged to carry spare warm clothes, food and drink and ensure that mobile phones are fully charged in case of emergency.

Patchy frost is expected on Friday, and parts of Scotland could see temperatures as low as -3c or -4c on Saturday.

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