
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.
Japanese discover writing via cellphone, in the form of cellphone novels. At first I thought they were only discussing using cellphones to read novels (like ereaders), which I think will come easily to the iPhone. I hadn't thought about actually writing a novel on phone keyboards. Whew!
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