Cell Phone Novels

A new trend has rocked the Japanese literary world: cell phone fiction. In Japan, nearly everyone uses a mobile phone to shop, surf the Web, play video games and watch live TV. Now cell phones are being used to pen, or rather, type, novels. More than a million titles of these novels are available online for free download. The books are filled with slang and emoticons, and the authors often use one-name monikers and keep their identities hidden.

Respected authors fear that cell phone novels may mark the end of Japanese literature, and yet they’ve become the unexpected titans of Japanese publishing. Last year cell phone novels held four of the top five positions on Japan’s literary bestseller list.

Dana Goodyear is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she wrote about this new genre for the cellular age. She joins us from her home in Los Angeles with more.

(Photo by Wonderlane)