Ms. Yang Yi, a Chinese resident in Japan, has won the 139th Akutagawa Prize, the prestigious literary prize launched in 1935. She became not only the first Chinese to receive the prize but also the first recipient who didn't start learning Japanese until after becoming an adult. We congratulate her on this feat, which we hope will serve as a catalyst for making the Japanese literary scene more interesting and for opening up Japanese society further.
Her accomplishment will undoubtedly be a source of pride not only for the more than 600,000 Chinese people living in Japan — now the largest foreign community here — but also for China, which hosts the Olympics in Beijing in August.
Ms. Yang, then a 23-year-old, fourth-year university student, came to Japan in 1987 and started learning Japanese. In January 2008, her first novel in Japanese, "Wan-chan," was shortlisted for the 138th Akutagawa Prize but was not chosen. At that time, some jurors expressed a harsh view about her Japanese. A half year later, "Toki-ga nijimu asa" — literally "A morning when time becomes blurred" — has taken Ms. Yang to Akutagawa Prize fame. Her efforts have paid off.