LIHU‘E — Tapping away on his keyboard in the corner of a crowded coffee shop, Todd Shimoda takes a short break from his computer. “Writing at home is too quiet,” Shimoda said. “I wrote my last novel at Borders. I
LIHU‘E — Tapping away on his keyboard in the corner of a crowded coffee shop, Todd Shimoda takes a short break from his computer.
“Writing at home is too quiet,” Shimoda said. “I wrote my last novel at Borders. I was there for probably two months writing every day. A lot of people walked by and asked what I was doing.”
What Shimoda was doing was writing “Oh! A Mystery of ‘Mono no Aware,’” a critically acclaimed novel that earned him the Elliott Cades Award for Literature.
Shimoda will accept the award and read an excerpt from his book at the ceremony, which is Saturday in Honolulu.
Shimoda’s other published works include “The Fourth Treasure” and “365 Views of Mt. Fuji.”
“I would say ‘Oh!’ is probably my best work,” Shimoda said. “It’s a real powerful story. When you read it, it seems like a real page-turning novel.”
The story is about Zack Hara, a Japanese-American who travels to Japan in search of an emotional life.
“I started writing (‘Oh!’) as a nonfiction book,” he said. “The publisher of ‘365 Views of Mount Fuji’ asked me to write a short book on this concept on mono no aware, which is a Japanese poetic term meaning the transience of beauty and the sadness of beauty.
“So I wrote a nonfiction piece about it, and gave to him, and he said he didn’t really understand it. Then I said that I really didn’t understand it either,” Shimoda said while letting out a laugh.
Shimoda couldn’t shake the idea of “mono no aware,” and he turned it into a novel, which is a piece of art itself.
The author’s wife, Linda Shimoda, lent her artistic skills to create original pieces to accompany the book.
Shimoda plans on publishing his next novel, “Subduction,” in 2012.
“It’s about a small island undergoing a lot of earthquakes,” he said. “It’s about the people who are still living there and how their lives are affected by these earthquakes. It’s a psychological metaphor for our emotions underneath the surface, and sometimes how they break. ”
While Shimoda classifies his work as fiction, he draws from his life experiences while writing his novels.
“There are different pieces of me and what I’ve done in my life in my novels,” he said. “But to be quite honest, if it was 100 percent based on that, it would be boring.”
Shimoda will receive his award Saturday at the sixth annual Hawai‘i Book & Music Festival at Honolulu Hale, located in Historic Downtown Honolulu. Admission and parking is free.
“Oh! A Mystery of ‘Mono no Aware’” is available online at www.Amazon.com, or can be ordered at Talk Story Bookstore in Hanapepe.
Visit www.ShimodaWorks.com for more information about the author.
• Andrea Frainier, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681, ext. 257 or afrainier@ thegardenisland.com.
