Natsuko Kuroda, the oldest Akutagawa prize winner

Natsuko Kuroda, 75 year old woman, won the 148^th Akutagawa prize on 16th of January.  I was surprised to hear the news because the Akutagawa prize is for promising newcomer writers in literature.  Seventy five year old is the oldest in the 80-year-history of the award.

Kuroda is more than just an old lady.  She seems to be beyond her age.  To be exact, she is beyond our common notion of what old women should be.  She is still youthful.  Besides, there is something very different about her. 

She started creating stories at the tender age of 5.  Since then she has been writing novels just because she likes doing it.  It didn’t matter to her at all whether her novels won a prize of not.  She was just in pursuit of whatever she wanted to express and she wasn’t even interested in the awards wining games.

She answered some questions after wining the prize.

“When I turned 70s, I started thinking that it would be very nice if I had readers who enjoy my novels.  That’s why I decided to apply for the prize again for the first time in 40 years.”  She added. ”Thank you for finding my work while I’m alive.”

Her prize-wining novel, “Ab Sango” is very unique and challenging in its writing style.  It depicts without using individual names or pronouns the memories of a child.  And it adapts horizontal writing instead of vertical as Japanese is usually written. 

However, it’s not just play on words, rather she is a true professional in the Japanese language.  She used to be a proofreader for a magazine, Mari Clare Japon, which I sometimes wrote fashion articles as a freelance writer.  It’s so fun to imagine her checking and correcting what I wrote.

In Japan, we are heading toward the aging society and now companies and marketers are starting to focus on so-called “senior” people, who are forming a big promising market.  But we should know that they are not stereotyped senior people, but rather, they might be a new type of old people like Kuroda.  Old people are changing here.

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My favorite dish, “Oysters in oil”

Bon appetit!  Oysters in oil served with sliced onion and black pepper.

The months that have the letter “r” are said to be good months for eating oysters.  It’s that time of year again that I make “oysters in oil.” 

I bought one kilogram of oysters at a department store on my way home just before our 3 day holidays.  We had a feast of oysters during holidays.

I got the recipe from a friend of mine some years ago.  Since then it has become one of my best dishes.  I cook it every chance I get because It’s a good appetizer.  It goes well with both wine and sake though I seldom drink.

To say the truth, I didn’t used to like oysters at all and still I don’t eat raw oysters, but this dish, “oysters in oil,” is an exception to me.  It tastes rich and creamy and the texture is soft like foie gras or lever.  Besides, the recipe is super simple. 

<1> Wash one pound of oysters in salted water.  <2> Drain and dry them.  <3> Heat them on a pan without oil until oysters stop dripping water.  <4> Add two spoonfuls of oyster sauce and stir-fry them lightly.  <5> Remove oysters from the pan and put them in a container along with red pepper, a laurel and a piece of crashed garlic.  <6> Pour oil over oysters till it covers them.  <7> Keep them for a day and serve with sliced onion and black pepper.  <8> It will stay fresh for a month in oil.

I can’t get enough of them, but they say too much of a good thing.  So I always try to eat only a couple of oysters at a time so that I would never get bored with them.

I reuse a bottle of jam as a container.  It stay fresh for a month.

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