68 - Canonization and popularization: anthologies and literary prizes

Summary

The anthology made material a national literary canon even as the state was in the midst of an imperial project that involved the manipulation of the boundaries of "Japanese-ness". The Complete Works and the Akutagawa Prize, a new literary award published by the company Bungei Shunjusha, represent moments in which cultural legitimacy and prestige were transferred to specific works through extra-literary mechanisms. These mechanisms were effective marketing tools, rendering the selected works as valuable commodities. The Complete Works garnered 340,000 subscribers at its peak, despite containing works that previously sold only a fraction of that number of copies. The whole, the canon of modern Japanese literature, was more valuable than the sum of its parts. As for the Akutagawa Prize, it is well-known that it too can increase sales of a work. One literary prize that is not awarded in Japan, but which also conflates individual writers with the nation, must also be mentioned: the Nobel Prize for Literature.