Japan office worker wins prize for novel on temps

TOKYO, Jan 18 (Reuters) A 23-year-old Tokyo office worker who won Japan's most prestigious literary prize this week says she wants her book to help young people who are afraid of growing up and becoming independent.

Nanae Aoyama won the Akutagawa prize on Tuesday for her novel ''Hitoribiyori'' or ''being alone'', the story of a young woman who has a temporary job and lives with an elderly relative while struggling to achieve independence.

It reflects a trend among young Japanese unable or unwilling to find full-time work to drift between temporary jobs. Many live with their families, partly because they do not earn enough to rent an apartment.

''People are afraid of going out into the world, without necessarily knowing why,'' Aoyama was quoted as telling reporters after the prize was announced. ''I felt that way too,'' she said.

''I want people to know that if you take the first step, you can just go with the flow,'' Aoyama said, adding that she wanted people of her own generation to read the book, her second.

Aoyama, who won prize money of 1 million yen, said she is not planning to give up her job at a travel firm. She writes for two or three hours at night after returning from work and uses her commuting time to think about plots, she said.

''My job gives me confidence. There are lots of positive things about it, so I would like to continue to work throughout my twenties,'' she told reporters.

Many critics have expressed concern that Japan's ''freeters'' as temporary workers are called, could become a permanent underclass. The number of temporary workers between the ages of 15 and 34 doubled between 1996 and 2004 to 214,000, according to government figures.

Statistics also show that poorly paid temporary workers are less likely than others to marry and have children, another source of concern for Japan, whose birth rate is far below the level needed to keep the population from falling.

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