You operate outside the mainstream of Japanese literary culture, and at the same time your books are widely popular. So I'll just keep on writing my own stuff as hard as I can. That's the only thing I have been able to count on. I guess fewer people believe in a mainstream literary culture these days, just as they don't believe in a Cold War anymore. And our economy is, unfortunately, in a time of shake, rattle, and roll.
Nothing is solid.
That is exactly what I want to write. That is what I have been writing for these twenty-three years. I am a Japanese writer and something beyond that. I respect my Japaneseness and my beyondness equally. I look on this as a great and invaluable opportunity.