Yeah, but is it really a novel?
“Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it.
Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere.
Will cellphone novels kill ‘the author’?”
First Cell Phone Novel
Compagni di Viaggio
By Robert Bernocco
An Italian IT professional who used his spare time during
his morning commutes to work to write an entire book
on his mobile using the T9 function. Bernocco opted for
normal Italian rather than text-message shorthand, however, this is
the exception in what is becoming a growing trend of
the text-message rule in the budding genre of cell
phone novels.
Link: NYTimes.com
Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular, By NORIMITSU ONISHI
