 The second Inoue Yasushi Award will be presented in a ceremony at The Japan Foundation, Sydney on Friday 6 June. The award's namesake, Yasushi Inoue (1907-1991), was one of Japan's most popular and prolific writers, combining literary art with entertainment. A winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1950, his work was described by one critic as 'the gust of a refreshing breeze sent to the wasted and wearied world of sentiment after the war'. For the next forty years until his death in 1991, Inoue wrote both lengthy novels and short stories, from exciting love stories to historical sagas.
The Inoue Yasushi Award was founded by the Inoue Yasushi Memorial Culture Foundation and established at the University of Sydney in 2006, to encourage Australian researchers, scholars and PhD students who are studying Japanese culture and literature. The award, which includes a cash prize of $1,000, is awarded annually for the best refereed journal article or book chapter on Japanese literature to have been published in English during the previous year by a researcher based in Australia. The inaugural award in 2007 was won by Dr Tomoko Aoyama of the University of Queensland.
The winner of the second Inoue Yasushi Award will be announced on Friday 6 June, at a ceremony to be held at The Japan Foundation, Sydney. After the winner's acceptance speech, special guest Mr Takuya Inoue, the second son of Yasushi Inoue, will give a speech entitled gMy God Fatherh. The ceremony will be followed by a screening of the Japanese film Furin Kazan (gSamurai Bannersh), based on Inoue's 1955 film of the same name.
The award presentation ceremony is sponsored by the University of Sydney, and co-sponsored by The Japan Foundation, Sydney, in conjunction with the Australia-Japan Society of NSW and the Japanese Society of Sydney. |
