Reading about Japan at I-House Library
"Lars Vargö reads from Out by Kirino Natsuo"
Wedne sday, February 12, 2 014 , 7:00 pm The Library, International House of Japan
Language: English (Without Japanese interpretation)
Admission: 500 yen (Members and Library members: free) *Reservations required

Kirino Natsuo (1951- ) is a Japanese novelist and a leading figure in the recent boom of female writers of crime fiction. Her most famous novel Out received the Mystery Writers of Japan Award, and was first finalist for a Japanese writer in the 2004 Edgar Awards. Her works are distributed in more than 20 countries.

Along with Out and her fourth novel Soft Cheeks, which received the 1999 Naoki Prize, her other novels have also received prominent literary awards such as the Edogawa Rampo Award, Tanizaki Jun’ichiro Award and Yomiuri Prize for Literature.

Some of her works are written based on and inspired by real cases which represent the darkness in modern Japanese society.

In those novels, she frequently depicts marginalized people and explores social problems. Having a keen insight into those minorities in society, Kirino presents them from their own standpoint.

Dr. Lars Vargö has been the Swedish Ambassador to Japan since 2011. While he is an experienced diplomat, he is also a specialist in Japanese history, has published numerous articles on Japan, and translated Japanese literature into Swedish. In this reading session,Dr. Vargö will read from Out which he translated into Swedish, with an analytical point of view about Japan today as historian, and will compare Swedish and Japanese society from the viewpoint of translator and one experienced in international affairs and cultural exchange

Lars Vargö, Ph.D. in Japanese Studies, is Swedish Ambassador to Japan, and Chairman of the Tokyo International Literary Society. His publications include The deceitful tranquility―Japan then and now (Carlssons,1992), The face of another by Abe K¬b¬, translation Leif Janzon and Lars Vargö (Lind och Co, 2004), and I Remember the crickets―Haiku poems by Natsume S¬seki, translation by Lars Vargö (Bambulunden, 2010).
Awarded the Order of Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star (1998), Ichikawa City Cultural Award (2003).

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