BEST AUTHOR BEST : YOKO OGAWA

'' My gaze meets the epine of a certain book,'' explains the author of '' The Memory Police.'' '' We exchange glances. ...........  This book has chosen me.'' Her latest novel is to be translated from Japanese is '' Mina's Matchbox.'' 

.-  What's the last book you read that made you cry?

When I feel like crying, I reread the scene in Erich Kastern's '' The Flying Classroom '' where the young protagonist tries to keep up his spirits by telling himself, '' Crying is strictly prohibited!''  

.-  What books are on your night stand?

Anne Frank's '' The Diary of a Young Girl '' and Yasunari Kawabata's '' Palm-of-the-Hand Stories.''

.-  What's the last great book you read?

'' Primeval and Other Times,'' by Olga Tokarczuk [ translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones ]; '' A Whole Life,'' by Robert Seethaler [ translated by Charlotte Collins]; and '' The Cremator,'' by Ladislav Fuks [ translated by Eva M. Kandler].

.-  Who are the Japanese writers overdue for translation into English?

If I could name only one, it would probably be Kenji Miyazawa. There may already be translations, but I feel that his dynamic appeal in works that move freely between historical periods and languages, between human beings and animals, between the Earth and the universe, should be more widely known.

.-  What's the best book you've ever received as a gift?

Shortly, after I published my first novel, my editor gave me a copy of Richard Brautigan's '' In Watermelon Sugar.''

.-  The last book you read that made you furious?

Svetlana Alexieich's '' Chernobyl's Prayer,'' translated by Arch Tait and Anna Gunin, which will be released in 2025.

.-  What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

So many : '' The Sound and the Fury,'' '' The Brothers Karamazov,'' ''The Tale of Genji.''.......

.-  What is it like having your books circulate in translation so many years after you wrote and published them?

It doesn't affect me one way or the other. Human time and the time of fiction are quite distinct in my mind. My goal is to write novels that have a life beyond that of the author.

.-  What's the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

Female anglerfish can reach 60 centimeters or more, while some males can be less than four centimeters. The male becomes a parasite, attaching itself to the larger female and dissolving into her body, effectively becoming nothing more than a tool for producing sperm.

The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.