The selection committee for the Akutagawa and Naoki literary awards announced Wednesday that no works would receive the awards this time — for the first time in 27 years.
Awarded biannually in January and July, the Akutagawa and Naoki prizes are Japan’s most prestigious literary honors. The committee’s decision marks the sixth time since their inception, in 1935, that both prizes have had no winners. The last instance was in January 1998.
“Out of the four nominated works, Gregory Khezrnejat’s ‘Trajectory’ and Koreko Hibino’s ‘Taemanai Hikari no Tashizan' (literally translated as ‘The Constant Addition of Light’) were discussed further after the first round of voting,” selection committee member Hiromi Kawakami said regarding the Akutagawa Prize decision. “However, as neither received a majority vote in the second round, unfortunately, there is no recipient this time.”
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