Japanamerica, Roland Kelts Feature, and Monkey Business

Remember when I was telling you about hitting all the cons in Seattle in one weekend? Well, the biggest of these was SakuraCon, a huge anime-and-all-things-pop-and-Japanese conference in downtown Seattle in April. And I got to see someone I had corresponded with (I’d read his book, his interviews, even an article he wrote for Japanese Vogue – and had even planned to quote him in an article about Matthea Harvey some years ago…) but had never met in person.

Roland Kelts is the author of Japanamerica, a terrific exploration of the worlds of Japanese pop culture and their impact on American audiences. I’ve seen Roland interview Hayao Miyazaki – a fabulous experience – at Berkeley, and his interview with Haruki Murakami in the very first issue of A Public Space was the reason I bought the issue. I had the opportunity to sit down for coffee with Roland Kelts when he was in town for SakuraCon, and ask him a few questions.

Jeannine Hall Gailey: Roland, I had so much fun reading your book, Japanamerica, particularly because we share a love of Hayao Miyazaki’s work and writers like Haruki Murakami. Can you tell me your recommendations for three writers from Japan (besides the awesome Murakami) you think more Americans should be reading – they can be fiction writers or poets!

Roland Kelts: I would start with Yoko Ogawa. Her elegiac sensibility and normal depictions of abnormalities makes her an elegant distant cousin of Haruki Murakami, as does her simplistic seeming, eerily penetrating prose. I also like Hideo Furukawa, who writes like the world has already ended and we ought to accept the aliens we have already become–to others and ourselves. Finally, I’ve recently been enthralled by the work of Hiromi Kawakami, whose sense of neighborhoods and their absurdities, and our desperate need for them, resonates deeply in a world gone mad with so-called ‘globalization.’

JHG: You know I’m a huge fan of Miyazaki’s movies, particularly because of his strong female heroines like Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa and his haunting post-apocalyptic landscapes. Do you have a favorite anime series or movie you’d like to share? And why do you love it?

RK: There are so many series that are uneven but addictive, as you know. For films, I particularly like Satoshi Kon’s Millenium Actress, Makoto Shinkai’s Five Centimeters Per Second, Mamoru Hosoda’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and that enduring classic, Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies. These are all stunning examples of how far Japan has taken animation.

JHG: You’re launching – and co-editing – a new magazine called Monkey Business this week in New York. What is the mission of the magazine, and why do you think people should read it and subscribe immediately?

RK: The mission of the magazine is actually quite humble: To introduce to Americans and other English-language readers the joys and edges of contemporary Japanese writing. Manga is equally thrilling, of course, but manga and anime artists are not the only creative Japanese giving us a vision of our fresh and daunting world. Americans who want to know what our new world will look, feel and smell like would do well to dip into the cauldron of contemporary Japan, a country that experienced apocalypse and lived to tell the tales.

And here’s where you can pre-order your very own copy of Monkey Business, the exciting new literary magazine:
http://www.apublicspace.org/pre-order_monkey_business.html
The manga and interviews alone make this a totally awesome package, but the short fiction and poetry are pretty wonderful, as well!

And, from A Public Space:

Fascinating interview with Motoyuki Shibata here about American fiction’s impact on Japanese writers:
http://www.apublicspace.org/look_heres_america_a_co.html