Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - LecturerPhan Thu Van from the Ho Chi Minh City Pedagogical University has won the firstprize in the third Inoue Yasushi Awards for her thesis about two novels byJapanese writers.
Van was among three winners to behonoured at the ceremony on July 18, which was co-hosted by the JapanFoundation and the Inoue Yasushi Memorial Foundation in Hanoi.
"I’m really happy and surprisedbecause the contest attracts the best in the profession," Van said."I have researched Yasushi’s work for three years and the award willencourage me to continue my research on modern Japanese writers."
Van’s thesis titled The Journeyof Life and The Heritage of Memory in Inoue Yasushi’s Tonko and KazuoIshiguro’s The Buried Giant, addresses the messages in Yasushi andIshiguro’s works, despite the fact they don’t relate with each other.
Yasushi is one of Japan’s mostprolific writers today, and started relatively late as a novelist, whileIshiguro is a Nobel Prize winner living in the UK.
Van is one of the first Vietnameseresearchers to study Yasushi, and claimed fourth prize in 2016 and second placelast year at the awards.
The second and the third prizes wentto Nguyen Thanh Trung and Tran Thi Thuc.
Trung’s thesis was titled TheVariable Status of Magical Realism in Murakami Haruki’s Novels and Thuc’sis Human Condition in Kobo Abe and Kenzaburo Oe’s Works from a ComparativeViewpoint.-VNA/VNS
