Anna Cima's debut novel, ``Awakening in Sibuya,'' became an instant bestseller when it was published in the Czech Republic in 2018, winning several of Czech's major literary awards for new writers. A Japanese version has been published, and this work, which is set in Shibuya, has already become a hot topic in Japan, and a reprint was quickly decided.

This work is not a work that humorously depicts Japanese culture and society as a completely different culture from Czech. Rather, it is a literary work that projects modern Japanese literature and society onto Czech society. What makes this possible is the author's deep understanding and empathy for Japanese culture.

In the second part of the interview, we will ask Anna Tzima to talk about her connection to Japan, which is the background behind this work, and from what perspective she views Japan and the Czech Republic.

My encounter with different cultures and Japan was through Kurosawa movies and “NARUTO”

Anna Tsima was fascinated by Japan because of the influence of her father, a screenwriter. Thanks to her father's knowledge of Japanese cinema and literature, Anna Cima was introduced to Japan in the early 2000s, even before the "Japan boom" arrived in the Czech Republic.

“My first encounter with Japan was in 2000, when I was 10 years old.My father bought all the DVDs of Akira Kurosawa's works that were being sold at low prices in the Czech Republic at the time, and he made sure to show them to me and my sister. I watched a lot of Kurosawa's works between the ages of 10 and 12, from the famous ones to the lesser-known ones.I especially liked ``The Drunken Angel.''

“My second encounter with Japan was when I was 12 or 3 years old.The Internet was finally becoming popular in the Czech Republic, and my sister, who was 9 years old at the time, saw ``Naruto'' and got excited and told me about it. I said, ``Anna, this anime is amazing.'' My sister and I were excited to watch it, even though we couldn't understand the subtitles in English.''

``The Japan of Kurosawa's works is completely different from the Japan of anime, but both are amazing! When I said that to my father, he said, ``Well, why don't you read this?'' He handed me a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa that had been translated into Czech. It was very interesting, so I started reading Japanese literary works that had been translated into Czech one after another, and eventually decided that I wanted to read them in their original language, so I wanted to study Japanese. I asked my father if I wanted to go to a language school, and he started studying Japanese at the age of 15.However, the students at the language school were all different in age and had different learning goals and motivations, and they only met once a week. I didn't learn much in that class."

After that, he entered the Japanese Department of Charles University, which is famous for its high entrance exam ratio. He spent his days immersed in Japanese from morning to night, and for the first time realized how difficult it was to learn Japanese. It was difficult for him to study so much that he had trouble making friends, but things changed when he started interacting with graduate students studying Japanese literature in his third year at university. "As I was talking to them, I realized, oh, I want to do literature." Anna Tsima was determined to pursue her master's degree and study Japanese literature.

As a researcher, what is your perspective on Japanese literature from the 60s, including Kenzaburo Oe?

Anna Tsima's ``Awakening in Shibuya'' became a bestseller, and she is planning her next work, but she is also passionate about research. Her research theme is ``Literature related to the Japanese student movement of the 1960s.'' The Czech Republic has undergone several major revolutions from the 60s to the present day, and her grandparents and parents' generation has been deeply involved in social reform movements led by citizens and students. When she encountered the Japanese student movement and the literature depicting it, she felt a strange sense of familiarity and began to take an interest in it.

``I was shocked when I read Kenzaburo Oe's ``Football for the first year of Mannobu,'' and since then I have loved Oe's works and have read many of them. It was very interesting to see that the student movements of the 50s and 60s played a role in the works written by writers such as Yumiko Kurahashi, Sho Shibata, and Kazumi Takahashi. I began researching the changes in the image of students in the literature."

"In Czechoslovakia, which was a socialist country, strong censorship and restrictions on freedom were finally loosened through the 60s, and in 1968, a movement for social change by students and citizens arose and democratization was promoted, resulting in the ``Prague Spring.'' There was a time when it was called. However, everything changed with the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact forces led by the Soviet Union. My grandparents' generation lived through this era and saw that with the end of the Prague Spring, the life of the Czechoslovak people was in a sense over. I am strongly attracted to the student movement that took place in the 60s in Japan, which is far from the Czech Republic, and the literature that was born in that era.''

“Then in 1989, the authorities suppressed a vigil for a student named Jan Palach who self-immolated in 1968 to protest the military intervention in 1969, and protested the arrest of playwright Václav Havel, the organizer. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany in November, citizens in the Czech Republic finally won democracy, which was called the Velvet Revolution. My parents, especially my father, who was a student at FAMU* at the time, were deeply involved in this movement.From the time we were born, we were inspired by our grandparents and parents as citizens and students who wanted to change society. I grew up hearing about our movement."

*Film and TV Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. A university of arts in Prague, Czech Republic, consisting of three faculties: music, theater, and film. The school is known as a prestigious school for producing films such as Milos Forman for "Amadeus," which won eight awards including Best Picture at the 3th Academy Awards.

Depicting Japan, a country with many disasters, from a country with few natural disasters.

When he thought more deeply about the character Kiyomaru Kawashita, who is said to have lived between the Meiji and Taisho periods, he couldn't help but mention the Great Kanto Earthquake in his work.

``When it comes to fateful events that change one's life, Kiyomaru Kawashita is a writer born in the Meiji era, so I think he must have experienced the Great Kanto Earthquake, and he talks about how that event affected his life. I thought about it when I wrote it.By the way, the Czech Republic doesn't get hit by earthquakes, so when I was writing ``Awakening in Shibuya'' there, I had never experienced an earthquake.''

On the day the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred, I was preparing to attend prom, a high school graduation event. At that time, my mother, who was watching TV, said to me, ``Anna, something terrible has happened in Japan! Come quickly! ” she called out loudly. She flew off in the middle of applying her make-up and was stunned by the sight of the scene on TV. A few years after I started writing "Awakening in Shibuya," I thought a lot about how to depict the great tragedy of an earthquake, and searched for inspiration in the diaries and memories of people who had experienced the Great Kanto Earthquake. ,I have written. When I first experienced an earthquake after coming to Japan, I thought it was only a small tremor, but I felt frightened. I use that experience in the depiction of my works."

“Awakening in Shibuya” captivated young Czech women

The Czech Republic is a small country with a population of 1065 million people, but ``Awakening in Sibuya'' has been reprinted and has already sold more than 10,000 copies. Many of the readers are young women, and they post many photos of the book's cover and their impressions on Instagram.

``It's always very interesting and encouraging to receive various comments and opinions from readers.There are so many comments on book review sites that if I read them in detail, I might not be able to write the next one.'' That's why I don't read much. When I think about it, I realize that the way writers and readers communicate has changed a lot over the past 10 years. Even though I received a lot of emails, only one email was sent to the publisher (lol).

``My husband Igor and I would like to introduce Japanese literature more widely to the Czech Republic.I hope that more people will read Japanese works and think that it would be interesting if it was translated by two people from Cima.'' I think so.”

There is no doubt that young Czech literary figures will continue to build solid bridges with Japan.

(Titles omitted)

→From Prague to Shibuya. To the trajectory of Anna Tsima (Part 1)

Cima Anna

Born in Prague in 1991. After graduating from the Department of Japanese Studies at Charles University, he studied abroad in Japan. Debuted in 2018 with “Awakening in Shibuya”. She received the Czech Republic's biggest literary awards, the Magnesia Litera Newcomer's Award and the Jiří Olten Award, for this book, which attracted attention.

“Awakening in Shibuya” Published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha

Yana, who is studying Japanese literature in the Czech Republic, is obsessed with researching a mysterious Japanese author. Meanwhile, Yana's "alter ego" is wandering around Shibuya. A new generation fantasy Japanesque novel where Prague and Tokyo overlap. Illustration: Ryotaro Ueda

Written by Anna Tsima Translated by Kenichi Abe and Teruhiko Sudo 384 pages ISBN: 978-4-309-20826-8