On a recent trip to Japan (which I am in the process of reporting on here), I browsed through many bookstores. Because my reading speed in Japanese still hasn’t quite caught up to my English reading speed, rather than actually read a few pages of a book I generally focus on searching for covers and… Read More »
Yoko Ogawa (小川洋子) is an award-winning Japanese author who has written over 30 works, with at least eight of them translated into English so far. She is perhaps most known for her novel “The Housekeeper and the Professor” (博士の愛した数式) which was also made into a movie. I read Ogawa’s book “Little Bird” (ことり) last year… Read More »
Here are some tips to help you take your translation skills to the next level: 1. Develop your language sense Your sense of language, for both the source and target languages, is one of the core things that drives the quality of your translations. 2. Read often Reading from a diverse set of authors (again for… Read More »
Since reading (and reviewing) Yoko Ogawa (小川洋子)’s novel “Little Bird” (小鳥), I’ve been interested in exploring more of what this unique author has to offer. Just today I came across an audio narration of one of her short stories called “Hexagonal Room” (６角形の小部屋）here on Youtube, apparently from a radio talkshow. (Make sure you start listening… Read More »
I’ll be the first to admit that the novel “Boy of Civilization” was a hyoushigai (表紙買い) for me, which basically means I bought it after being attracted by the cover. Not only was it beautiful on its own, but it also reminded me of the cover of “Lagos on a Journey” (旅のラゴス) by Yasutaka Tsutsui.… Read More »
(Update: I have since republished these stories in a larger compilation that you can find here, which is available in both paper and ebook format. I have changed the links in the article below to the original short e-book to point to this newer book.) (Quick link to the book on Amazon) Early this year, I published… Read More »
This is the 7th chapter of a story I am translating titled “House Ephemera” (蜉蝣の家) by Hatasu Shikishima (識島果). Thanks to Sherayuki for helping proofread this chapter. You can read the full Japanese text of this chapter here. See this page which contains a brief synopsis and links to other chapters (as they are posted).… Read More »
This is the 6th chapter of a story I am translating titled “House Ephemera” (蜉蝣の家) by Hatasu Shikishima (識島果). Thanks to Sherayuki for helping proofread this chapter. You can read the full Japanese text of this chapter here. See this page which contains a brief synopsis and links to other chapters (as they are posted).… Read More »
Generally when I pick a Japanese novel to read, either the story itself caught my attention or there was something else about the book (for example, it won one or more awards) that made it seem a worthy read. In the case of the novel “Little Bird” (ことり) by Yoko Ogawa (小川洋子), it was clearly… Read More »
This is the 5th chapter of a story I am translating titled “House Ephemera” (蜉蝣の家) by Hatasu Shikishima (識島果). Thanks to Sherayuki for helping proofread this chapter. You can read the full Japanese text of this chapter here. See this page which contains a brief synopsis and links to other chapters (as they are posted).… Read More »