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3 weeks ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
A flight and a bus or several trains, a line, a boat, another line, a bus, a walk and 96 stairs is all it takes to get to Naoshima’s newest art sanctum. Benesse Art Site Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea, popularly shortened to just Naoshima or “the art islands,” is a veritable art theme park of six museums and 22 spaces across four islands. Last week it welcomed a new member. The building, imaginatively named Naoshima New Museum of Art, opened May 31.
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1 month ago | 
businessandamerica.com | Thu-Huong Ha
After last year’s controversy over using AI to write about 5% of her novel, Rie Qudan was asked by an advertising magazine to write a short story where she uses AI for 95% of it. Source link
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1 month ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
In January 2024, Rie Qudan won Japan’s most prestigious prize for early and mid-career writers, widely seen as the country’s literary kingmaker. At the press conference, where she accepted the Akutagawa Prize for her novel “Sympathy Tower Tokyo,” Qudan made an unthinkable admission to the press and literati: She had used AI to write it.
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1 month ago | 
artreview.com | Thu-Huong Ha
Where Vuong’s 2019 debut, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, often felt overwrought and too writerly, his latest is firmly grounded and perfectly tunedOcean Vuong’s second novel is as wide in scope as it is quiet and tender. Set in a blue-collar northeast American town characterised by copy-paste strip malls, the story follows nineteen-year-old Hai after he runs away from home.
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1 month ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
The car pulls into Yumeshima Station with a shhh, and the gleaming doors with a trim of neon green lights open onto a brand new train platform. I’m headed to the Osaka Expo 2025, a six-month world fair that wants to “design future society for our lives,” and though I expect a whisper-quiet entrance to match the train ride, my first thought is that the future is very loud and full of rules. As the doors open, I’m hit with a wall of sound.
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2 months ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
In staid and overstuffed Kyoto, every year documentarians come bearing news from beyond the old Japanese capital. This year, despite a grim global outlook, they’ve brought mostly cheerful tidings.
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2 months ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
From the author who brought you “woman who’s one with a convenience store” and “woman who’s sure she’s an alien,” comes a brand new dystopian adventure — “woman with 40 imaginary lovers.”Sayaka Murata has gained a cult following for speculative stories that start with familiar domestic scenes and spiral out to wild and outlandish conclusions.
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Mar 15, 2025 | 
courrierinternational.com | Thu-Huong Ha
Avant, c’était l’accessoire par excellence de l’homme d’affaires, puis l’agenda papier japonais est tombé en disgrâce au début de ce siècle. Aujourd’hui, cet objet est redevenu une véritable institution et séduit en dehors des frontières de l’archipel. Le papier n’a pas dit son dernier mot, c’est même la star des réseaux sociaux. Un phénomène analysé par le “Japan Times”. Cet article est issu de Courrier Week-end.
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Mar 9, 2025 | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
“The Place of Shells” by Mai Ishizawa, a strange and slim novel of erudition, captures the emotional haze in the aftermath of disaster. Ishizawa’s debut novel, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton. It takes place in the summer of 2020, in the months following the global outbreak of COVID-19.
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Mar 4, 2025 | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
On a Sunday morning in January, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) in Kiba Park was flooded with bright winter light and a throng of people. Visitors waited in densely packed lines to see “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Seeing Sound, Hearing Time,” billed as the largest solo exhibition dedicated to the composer and musician who died in March 2023. The sign propped by the start of the line read “Wait time: 60 minutes.”The show has been a smash hit, far exceeding the expectations of the curatorial team.
