Red Circle Authors is a British publishing house based in London that specialises in Japanese fiction.

Origins

Red Circle Authors was set up in 2016, by Richard Nathan and Koji Chikatani, to showcase Japan’s best creative writing. The Gutai group was the initial inspiration behind Red Circle Authors. Members of the Red Circle Authors group include:

Kazufumi Shiraishi is a Japanese novelist and the son of novelist . The two are the only father-son pair to have both received the Naoki Prize, the father on his eighth nomination after numerous disappointments and the son on his second, for the 2009 ''Hokanaranu ...

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Fuminori Nakamura is the pseudonym of a Japanese author. Nakamura came to international attention when he won the 2010 Kenzaburō Ōe Prize for his novel, ''The Thief'' (掏摸, "Pickpocket"). The English translation of the novel was well received. Works in Eng ...

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Mitsuyo Kakuta Mitsuyo Kakuta (, ''Kakuta Mitsuyo'', born 8 March 1967) is a Japanese author born in Yokohama.IFORetrieved 23 May 2016/ref> She has been engaged in translating into modern Japanese the 11th-century proto-novel '' The Tale of Genji'' by Murasaki Sh ...

, Takuji Ichikawa, Soji Shimada and

Roger Pulvers Roger Pulvers (born 4 May 1944) is an Australian playwright, theatre director and translator. He has published more than 45 books in English and Japanese, from novels to essays, plays, poetry and translations. He has written prolifically for t ...

. Currently, only a limited number of literary works by Red Circle's authors are available outside Japan in translation. Despite this, many of Red Circle's authors have won literary awards in Japan including, for example, the Naoki Prize (

2005,

in 2010) and the Akutagawa Prize (

in 2005); and have had their works adapted for film and television in Japan. Some of the group's authors already have well-established reputations in Asia (in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand, for example) and are starting to win international literary prizes. Fuminori Nakamura, for instance, won the David L. Goodis Award in 2014.

Imprint and series

Red Circle Authors' publishing imprint is Red Circle. Red Circle Authors launched this imprint and publishing programme on 23 November 2018 with the launch of its first series Red Circle Minis and the publication of its first three Minis: ''Stand-In Companion'' by Kazufumi Shiraishi, ''Backlight'' by Kanji Hanawa and ''Tokyo Performance'' by Roger Pulvers Commentators and reviewers said after their publications that the approach taken was "not about resizing big books into small objects, but rather about celebrating textual brevity in book form itself", a longtime tradition in Japan.

Activities

Red Circle Authors' activities are managed from London. The group also has an office in Tokyo. It promotes its select curated group of contemporary Japanese and Japan-based authors and their creative works to the international publishing industry and readers from these two locations. In addition to its book publishing Red Circle publishes a magazine on its website, ''The Circle'', which provides news, analysis and opinion on Japanese literature, writers, publishing, bookselling and culture.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official websiteThe CircleRed Circle Factbook
Book publishing companies based in London Publishing companies established in 2016 British companies established in 2016 Japanese-language mass media Japanese fiction Literary translation