A bold provocation from a twenty-year-old rookie writer!

Hitomi Kanehara's appearance in the Japanese literary world was shocking.
She won the Subaru Literary Award in 2003 for her debut novel, Piercing the Snake, written at the age of nineteen, and then shared the Akutagawa Prize with Risa Wataya in 2004, breaking the record for the youngest recipient of the Akutagawa Prize in 37 years.
"Piercing the Snake" attracted much attention even before it won the award due to its provocative subject matter of piercings and tattoos and its explicit expressions, and it received the highest score during the Akutagawa Prize judging process, receiving recommendations from 9 out of 10 judges.
Dyed brown hair, six piercings on each ear, a brown knit with a deep cut, a black miniskirt, and black stockings that reach to the knees.
Appearing at the awards ceremony in an outfit that you would normally see on the streets of Tokyo's Shibuya, she surprised people once again with her unusual history of refusing to go to school since the 4th grade of elementary school (her highest level of education was dropping out of high school).
Readers were either amazed by the shocking content and descriptions of "Piercing the Snake," or they sympathized with and were enthusiastic about her emotions.


“Do you know what a split tongue is?”

Louis is attracted to the split tongue of a man named Amara whom he meets at a club and begins living with him.
'Split tongue' means a tongue that is split in two like a snake.
The tongue is pierced and the hole is gradually enlarged, with the remaining tip eventually cut off.
Louis is introduced to a man named Shiba, who owns a shop specializing in piercings and tattoos. He gets his tongue pierced and also gets a tattoo on his back like an Ama, and begins to have a sexual relationship with Shiba.
The strange relationship between Louis and the cold and inscrutable sadist Shiva and the naive and choleric Amah continues for a while.
Then one day, an incident occurs where Ama is violently attacked by a thug who is pestering Louis.
And some time later, Louis happens to read an article about the thug's death.
Even though he is anxious, Louis does not tell anyone about it and continues his life as if nothing happened.
And after the tattoo is completed, Ama disappears shortly thereafter.
Louis falls into an uncontrollable panic.
"Piercing the Snake" is a novel so solid that it's hard to believe it was written by a twenty-year-old author.
The sentences are precise and powerful, without any unnecessary frills, and the story is smooth and easy to read, and has a charm that draws the reader in.
The pain felt by the protagonist Louis is clearly conveyed to the reader.
Before trying to understand that pain, a certain sadness, a transparent sadness that cannot be clearly defined as that of a twenty-year-old girl, is felt first.
It is precisely because of this power that the Akutagawa Prize judges did not hesitate to select this work as the Akutagawa Prize winner, even though they frankly admitted that they could not understand the thoughts and actions of the young people depicted in the novel.

Writing that confronts the world with one's whole body and vomits it out

Hitomi Kanehara has attracted as much attention for her unique background as for her novels.
She barely went to school since the 4th grade of elementary school, cut her own wrists in middle school and was even in and out of a psychiatric hospital, started living with her boyfriend in high school, and even lived in a pachinko parlor for a while.
It was when she was in the 6th grade of elementary school that she started writing novels.
While living in the United States for a year due to his father's work as a university professor and translator, he began writing little by little while reading novels his father had bought for him. Later, he had the opportunity to practice writing while participating in a creative writing seminar hosted by his father at the university.
Even while living away from home, her father carefully read and evaluated her writing, and the daughter continued to write steadily with her father's understanding.
And in 2003, she won the Subaru Literary Award for her work, "Piercing the Snake," which she submitted at the recommendation of her live-in boyfriend. The following year, in 2004, she won the Akutagawa Award, Japan's most prestigious literary award, for the same work.
In an interview, she said that writing is a habit and a part of herself, and that she writes to convince herself of her feelings and emotions.
For her, who never stopped writing even during unstable days, writing became the foundation that allowed her to sustain herself in any situation.
As the father who understands his daughter's writing best puts it, her writing is like a pearl that she spits out as she collides with the world with her whole body.
The more she suffers, the brighter her writing becomes. She suffers along with her writing, and she is the one who has been destined to become a novelist, and will inevitably continue to do so.