Book release: bilingual book of Japanese fairy tales (Mimei Ogawa)

For those of you following this blog you probably know that I have been making E-books of some of my translations since early 2018. Releasing books like this makes it more worthwhile to spend the extra effort to get a polished result, including a lot of editing work. While I still like writing posts for STJ and intend to continue doing so, these books are very enjoyable projects and one of the highlights of my hobby life.

Of course, one of the most exciting moments of a book project is when it is released to the public, which is why I am happy to announce the release of my sixth book today.

There was a lot of factors involved in choosing this project (you can read more about my selection process here) but to be frank my collection containing translations of Japanese classical short stories by Mimei Ogawa, ––one of the founding fathers of Japanese children’s literature––has been my best selling book, so in the end it was an easy decision.

The structure of this Volume 2 is pretty similar to Volume 1: there are a handful of short stories in bilingual Japanese/English (alternating paragraphs) as well as English only versions. However, this time the average length of the stories is a little shorter, and there are more of them. I’ve also added a brief section on how the book can be used to help those studying Japanese or interested in becoming translators. (Note: while the new book doesn’t have much in terms of reviews yet, you can see a handful of generally positive ratings and reviews on the Goodreads page for Volume 1 here)

Besides being enjoyable stories (often with a moral lesson), I think these stories are perfect for Japanese learners because the grammar is relatively simple and the kanji use is much easier than many books targeting adults. After all, these stories were written in children in mind.

I’m considering writing a “making of” article for this book, so I’ll leave out details of translating and producing this book for now. But I’ll finish by saying the book (as well as the first volume) is available on Amazon for only $0.99. Also, I’d like to thank my friend Yeti san (of Shousetsu Ninja) for helping with the editing and story selection of this book.

If you enjoy reading Self Taught Japanese, please consider buying a copy as a token of your appreciation.T

Classic Japanese Fairy Tales [Volume 2]: Mimei Ogawa: The Father of Modern Japanese Fairy Tales (Amazon Page)

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