VietNamNet Bridge – The 3rd Inoue Awards bestowed first prize on lecturer Phan Thu Van from the HCMC Pedagogical University on Tuesday for her thesis about two novels by Japanese writers.

The three award-winners at the ceremony held in Hanoi on Tuesday. — Photo courtesy of Japan Foundation

Van was among three winners to be honoured at the ceremony, which was co-hosted by the Japan Foundation and the Inoue Yasushi Memorial Foundation in Hanoi.

"I’m really happy and surprised because the contest attracts the best in the profession," Van said. "I have researched Yasushi’s work for three years and the award will encourage me to continue my research on modern Japanese writers."

Van’s thesis titled The Journey of Life and The Heritage of Memory in Inoue Yasushi’s Tonko and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, addresses the messages in Yasushi and Ishiguro’s works, despite the fact they don’t relate with each other. Yasushi is one of Japan’s most prolific writers today, and started relatively late as a novelist, while Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize winner living in the UK.

Van is one of the first Vietnamese researchers to study Yasush, and claimed fourth prize in 2016 and second place last year at the awards.

The second and the third prizes went to Nguyen Thanh Trung and Tran Thi Thuc. 

Trung’s thesis was titled The Variable Status of Magical Realism in Murakami Haruki’s Novels and Thuc’s is Human Condition in Kobo Abe and Kenzaburo Oe’s Works From A Comparative Viewpoint.

Source: VNS