By Christine Lim
KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama) -- Japanese acclaimed novelist, playwright and theatre director Toshikazu Kawaguchi looks to the warm weather in Malaysia to continue empowering people with his love and imagination.
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.
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 told Bernama in an interview recently.
Kawaguchi, 52, was here for his first visit to Malaysia in November last year to attend the Georgetown 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.
THE INTREPID JOURNEY OF “BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD”
Hailed from Osaka, the globe-trotting Kawaguchi was travelling to Dubai, Italy and Taiwan last year before visiting Malaysia to share his thoughts on the “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” series that rekindles deep profound emotions and imagination of reconnecting deceased loved ones and offers the chance for a dying mother to meet an unborn child in the future.
Set in an obscure café 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 café before and you have to finish drinking the coffee before it gets cold or else you will be trapped in the café 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 psychological films with time travel and fantasy themes such as “When Marnie Was There’ and “Kimi no Na wa” (your name).
And thus, according to Kawaguchi, so far there have been four books under the “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” series, three of which were translated into the English language and the fifth book, which he is working on, is scheduled to be published next month.
Kawaguchi, who hopes to make theatre culture more widespread has also recently completed a show in Okinawa, Japan and his internationally acclaimed novel “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” will also be made into a movie or distributed online in Hollywood, US.
“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
Kawaguchi is already known among the die-hard ardent young fans in Malaysia as an accomplished writer.
In a public talk at the Kinokuniya bookstore here recently, Kawaguchi shared his journey as a writer among a crowd of about 95 young enthusiastic teenagers and 20 to 30 year olds, who were eagerly asking him many questions based on 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,” Kawaguchi said.
Unable to debut as a manga artist, he got into the world of theatre when he was 22 until today.
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, it describes the story of a man leaving for a job in the United States (US) and his lover hopes for a chance to meet him in the café before his departure to fix their broken relationship, while in another story, it features a woman’s wish to go back in the past to meet her deceased sister who was estranged due to family disputes.
INSPIRATION
While he has made an indelible mark as a novelist, Kawaguchi also looks for inspiration of the works from other famous authors.
His top three favourite writers are legendary Japanese detective novelist, Tokuya Higashigawa of his renowned book, ‘koukan satsujin ni wa mukanai yoru’ (a bad night to exchange murder); Shinjuro Tobe, the author of a book on Hattori Hanzo, a famous ninja; as well as British novelist, J.K. Rowling, who produced Harry Porter, the globally acclaimed fantasy novels.
“I admire the literary skill of Higashigawa of gradually unravelling the mystery while intertwining it with humour,” he mused.
Kawaguchi also aspires to write like Tobe, in his eminently readable style that anyone would find easy to read.
CHALLENGES AS AN ACCOMPLISHED WRITER
While Kawaguchi may be an acclaimed novelist now, he recollected times in the past when he was struggling to be a writer and it was even difficult 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 to study to be a manga artist and film making,” he reminisced.
However, Kawaguchi was adamant that he continued to write and approached his editor again without overly worrying if his novel could be a hit.
Kawaguchi advised anyone who is interested to be a novelist 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 dream for the future is to create a dedicated theatre that comprises a bookshop, coffee shop and a performance stage all rolled into one; to create something that stimulates peoples’ imagination in the theatre culture.
He is also contemplating writing about the opening of Café Funiculi Funicula, the café 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 and it is going to be a Hollywood movie.
Edited by Salbiah Said
BERNAMA
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