This month, Mr. Jun Ikeido won the prestigious Naoki Prize for popular fiction; the Akutagawa Prize for new writers of literary fiction was not awarded as the judges found no exceptional work deemed worthy of the prize.

Mr. Ikeido's winning novel, "Shitamachi Rocket," concerns the struggles with banks and large companies that a small, family-run factory has in pursuing its dream of manufacturing a Japanese rocket part.

Mr. Ikeido, 48, worked at a major bank before quitting to work as a consultant; he wrote nonfiction business books until deciding to try his hand at fiction.