‘If you stop halfway, it’s going to make you have second thoughts,’ says Toshikazu Kawaguchi about pursuing a career in the literary world. Photo: The Japan Foundation, KL
Toshikazu Kawaguchi, an acclaimed Japanese novelist, playwright and theatre director, looks to the warm weather in Malaysia to continue empowering people with his love and imagination.
He described his first impression of Malaysia during the Christmas season as the feeling of eating warm ice cream.
“I spotted Christmas trees on display in Malaysia which felt odd because in Japan, Christmas is associated with the coldest time of the year and so Malaysia is really pleasant and I’d rather stay here as I’ve never been fond of the cold weather in wintry Japan,” he said in an interview.
Kawaguchi, 52, was here in November last year to attend the George Town Literary Festival, an international literary festival held in Penang, and a public talk organised by the Japan Foundation at the Kinokuniya bookstore in Kuala Lumpur.
His bestselling novel series Before The Coffee Gets Cold which mesmerised people worldwide with its time travel journey into the past and the future, has been translated into 35 languages and sold more than 3.2 million copies.
Hailing from Osaka, Kawaguchi travelled to Dubai, Italy and Taiwan last year before visiting Malaysia to share his thoughts on the Before The Coffee Gets Cold series that offers the idea of reconnecting with deceased loved ones.
Set in an obscure cafe in the back-alley of Tokyo, there are several strict rules present for time travellers, namely for the journey to the past, you can only meet the people that have visited the cafe before and you have to finish drinking the coffee before it gets cold or else you will be trapped in the cafe as a ghost.
Kawaguchi said the theme of this book is hope, that “even if you cannot change the present if you are to travel to the past or the future, you can still change someone’s heart and overcome any obstacles.”
The series that was made into a Japanese play, novel and movie, was nominated for the Bookstore Awards 2017, and drew similar international success as other animated Japanese films with time travel and fantasy themes such as When Marnie Was There and Kimi no Na wa (Your Name).
According to Kawaguchi, so far there have been four books in the Before The Coffee Gets Cold series, three of which were translated into English. The fifth book, which he is working on, is scheduled to be published next month.
Kawaguchi, who hopes to make Japanese theatre culture more widespread, also completed a recent stage show in Okinawa.
“I’ve become known in Malaysia, as a novelist, and have never presented the work I’ve done as a playwright or theatre director here. But given the chance, I’d love to have Malaysians see my work as a director,” he enthused.
Journey as a writer
In his public talk at the Kinokuniya bookstore in KLCC during his visit, Kawaguchi shared his journey as a writer among a crowd of young enthusiastic fans, who were eagerly asking him many questions about his experiences and on how to be a successful novelist.
Before he became a writer and playwright, he aspired to be a manga (comic) artist.
“Influenced by a classmate in primary school, I aspired to become a manga artist. A publisher showed interest in a manga I wrote in high school but nothing came out of it,” said Kawaguchi.
Unable to debut as a manga artist, he got into the world of theatre when he was 22.
In 2011, he debuted as a novelist after being persuaded by his editor who had seen his stage production of Before The Coffee Gets Cold.
“So this is how Before the Coffee Gets Cold became a play, then a novel and a movie later on,” he disclosed.He emphasised that as a writer, he always strives to write about the everyday lives of ordinary people and relationships.
In the first book, for instance, he writes the story of a man leaving for a job in the United States, and his lover hopes for a chance to meet him in the cafe before his departure to fix their broken relationship. Another story features a woman’s wish to go back to the past to meet her deceased sister who was estranged due to family disputes.
Future plans
While he has made his mark as a novelist, Kawaguchi also looks for inspiration in the works of other famous authors.
His top three writers are legendary Japanese crime novelist Tokuya Higashigawa (known for his book A Bad Night To Exchange Murder), Shinjuro Tobe, the author of a book on Hattori Hanzo (a famous ninja) and best-selling writer J.K. Rowling.
“I admire the literary skill of Higashigawa in gradually unravelling the mystery while intertwining it with humour,” he said.
Kawaguchi also aspires to write like Tobe, in his eminently readable style that anyone would find easy to read.
Before he started to tour the world to talk about his books, the friendly author recollected times in the past when he struggled to get a meal, with his mother constantly worrying about him.
“Before I succeeded as a novelist, I struggled quite a bit during certain periods and decided to step away from writing and study to be a manga artist and filmmaking,” he recalled.
However, Kawaguchi was adamant that he continued to write and approached his editor again without worrying if his novel would sell.
For anyone interested to be a novelist, he said, the goal is to finish writing until the end and not give up halfway, even if it becomes very challenging.
“If you stop halfway, it’s going to make you have second thoughts,” he added.
He emphasised that the challenge as a novelist is to be able to express complex emotions in words in contrast to a theatre play that leverages on the actors’ acting skills.
“Theatre is mainly visual and auditory stimulus but a novel stimulates your imagination as the writer has to essentially imagine everything,” he explained.
Kawaguchi revealed that his future dream is to create a dedicated theatre space in Japan that comprises a performance stage, bookshop and coffee shop ... all rolled into one.
He is also contemplating writing about Cafe Funiculi Funicula, the cafe in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series that acts as a time travel portal.
His last thought is to be able to go back in the past and meet his father and surprise him with what he is doing now as a novelist – that his books have been read by people all over the world. – Bernama
