A message to Korean readers

｜Register for Participation｜
theme
prelude
Nocturne
tremolo
lullaby
Drumroll
Zizui Zukorobashi
Well-Tempered Clavier, Volume 1, No. 1
[Loki] theme song

｜First Preliminary Round｜
There's no business better than a show.
ballade
interlude
A star is born
It's Only A Paper Moon
hallelujah
You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
Romance
Ode to Joy

｜Second Preliminary Round｜
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Black Key Etudes
Rondo Capriccioso
Conversational Etudes
The Ride of the Valkyries
The first step to love
moon
Beyond the Rainbow
Spring Festival
wisp
Heaven and Hell

｜3rd Preliminary Round｜
Intermission
Carnival of the Animals
Sonata in B minor
masquerade ball
I want you
Island of Joy
[War Without Justice] Theme Song

｜Main Line｜
Orchestra rehearsal
Day of Passion
Greetings of love
Music

Translator's Note

2017 14th Bookstore Awards 1st Place
2017 156th Naoki Prize Winner
Ranked 4th in the Amazon Japan literature category in the first half of 2017

Bookstore Grand Prize × Naoki Prize, the first simultaneous winners in history!
The publication of Riku Onda's blockbuster hit, which has sold over 600,000 copies in Japan.

Riku Onda, a representative writer of the Japanese literary world who has presented notable works such as 『Night Picnic』, 『Black and White Fantasy』, and 『Eugene』, while moving between various genres ranging from fantastical mystery and fantasy to coming-of-age novels that delicately capture the beauty of adolescence, has made a splendid return with his masterpiece 『Bees and Thunder』, completed after seven years of writing.
This novel, which beautifully depicts the world of human talent, destiny, and music through a piano competition set in the fictional city of Yoshigae, received extraordinary attention from the Japanese publishing world earlier this year when it became the first novel to simultaneously win the Naoki Prize and the Booksellers' Grand Prize, two of the most influential literary awards in the public eye.
Here, readers' praise poured in, saying, "It's as vivid as listening to music directly" and "It's the pinnacle of Onda Riku's literature," and it emerged as the most talked-about work that heated up Japanese bookstores in the first half of 2017.


The world of concours, where pure passion and cool business coexist.
The story of pianists struggling to spread music to the world.

A boy with a young face enters the audition hall of a contest held in Paris, France.
Everyone was puzzled by his blank resume, his hands covered in dirt, his gaze wandering around curiously, and his appearance that seemed completely out of place in classical music. However, the moment the boy's fingers struck the first note, the audition hall was shocked.
A free-spirited sound that is not bound by convention.
His groundbreaking performance both captivates and angers the judges.
The boy's name is Kazama Jin, the son of a beekeeper.


I will give you a gift of Kazama Jin.
Literally, he is a 'gift'.
Perhaps heaven sent us.
But don't be mistaken.
It is not he who is being tested, but you and I.
Among them, there will be those who hate him, detest him, and reject him.
But that too is his truth, the truth within those who 'experience' him.
It is up to you, no, us, to decide whether we will treat him as a true 'gift' or a 'disaster'.
(Page 41, from "Nocturne")

The Yoshigae Piano Competition, held every three years, is an international event where promising classical music talents from around the world, selected through rigorous auditions, gather together.
Aiden Aya was once called a genius girl who won the junior competition, but suddenly left the stage after losing her mother.
Juilliard School's secret weapon, Masaru Carlos Levy Anatole, is considered a strong contender for the championship with his overwhelming skills and star quality.
Akashi Takashima, a clerk at a large music store, gave up his dream of becoming a pianist for the sake of his family and lived as an ordinary father.
And there are countless participants who share the same goal of ‘music’ despite their different nationalities and backgrounds.
"Bees and Thunder" depicts the process of people with diverse personalities sometimes clashing to gain recognition for their music, and sometimes giving and receiving inspiration, in a competition where joy and sighs, dazzling spotlights and backstage darkness intersect, and they rise to become full-fledged "professional musicians."

In an interview with Japanese media, Onda Riku stated, “What I really wanted to portray was not ‘who wins,’ but ‘the image of people on the same stage interacting and growing’” (published in the December 2016 issue of All Yomimono).
As the saying goes, the participants go through two weeks of preliminary and final rounds, and go beyond 'competition' to become 'colleagues' who stimulate and inspire each other.
The music that these people, who were competing for the championship, gradually resonate and create together is as moving as any great performance.
And the presence of Kazama Jin, who always presents unpredictable performances, becomes a 'detonator' that unleashes and reveals countless talents that were confined within the framework of 'classical tradition,' thereby bringing even richer music out into the world.


Kazama Jin smiled faintly with a pleasant expression.

I mean, I made a promise with Mr. Hoffman.

What promise?
A promise to take music out into the world.
(Page 673, from "Day of Enthusiasm")

12 years of planning, 11 years of reporting, and 7 years of writing!
A masterpiece among masterpieces that left an unprecedented mark in the history of Japanese literature.

"The Bee and the Thunder" is a special novel that Onda Riku, who has published over 60 works over 25 years, poured half of his life into completing.
The author, who has long wanted to write a work about the piano as a music lover, began to conceive of a novel based on the story of Rafał Blechacz, who shared first place at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition held in 2003 at the age of 18.
And from 2006 to 2015, he attended four competitions and meticulously collected data to perfectly recreate the stage and audience scenery, as well as the participants' performances, in "Bees and Thunder."
(The winner of the 2009 competition, which I attended for the second time, was the Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, who became a hot topic after winning the Chopin Competition.) As Keigo Higashino said in his review, “It is difficult to express music in words, but Riku Onda uses all means and expressions to convey its beauty to the reader,” “The Bee and the Thunder” is full of vivid and three-dimensional sentences that make it feel like music is flowing in your ears.
As this is a work that took longer than ever to write, each word was carefully considered, you can feel the author's unique fantastical and aesthetic atmosphere, as well as the code of 'growth', and you can feel the 'essence' of literature that Riku has been pursuing.


With this work, which took 12 years of planning, 11 years of research, and 7 years of writing, Riku Onda became the first author to win both the Naoki Prize and the Bookstore Grand Prize at the same time, and also earned the title of "the first author to win first place in the Bookstore Grand Prize twice" in 12 years since "Night Picnic" in 2005.
Additionally, a classical album containing the characters' performances in competitions was released and climbed the Billboard Japan charts, continuing an unprecedented streak of new records.
This work, which comes to Korean readers in the meaningful year of the author's 25th debut anniversary, will be a welcome gift not only to fans who have been waiting for the author's new work, but also to those who wish to forget the noise of everyday life and feel the primal beauty of 'music', even if only for a moment.