Category Archives: translation

TransLiterary Lab (#3): live analysis and translation of Japanese literary excerpts

I’ve recently started a new series called “TransLiterary Lab” (文学翻訳ラボ) where I do analysis and translation of short excerpts of Japanese literature. You can see more information about this series in this post. In this third episode I will discuss and translate a little of 夢十夜 from Natsume Soseki (夏目漱石) for which you can the… Read More »

TransLiterary Lab (#2): live analysis and translation of Japanese literary excerpts

I’ve decided to start a new series called “TransLiterary Lab” (文学翻訳ラボ) where I do analysis and translation of short excerpts of Japanese literature. You can see more information about this series in this post. In this second episode I will continue where I left off in episode one, and translate a little more of Akutagawa… Read More »

TransLiterary Lab (#1): live analysis and translation of Japanese literary excerpts

I enjoy writing articles on this blog as well as doing translation of various Japanese works, and was considering writing more articles where I analyze passages and talk about translation details. However, some time ago I hit upon an idea that would be much more fun and potentially more educational than a simple article. Now,… Read More »

Japanese Book Release: “The Spirit Drum” by Kyusaku Yumeno

The more I study Japanese the more I am attracted by Japan’s literature that boasts a certain mystique hard to find in western fiction. In addition to the many differences between the English and Japanese languages themselves, Japan has a culture that goes back several thousands of years, giving an extra depth to its literary… Read More »

Classical Japanese poetry translation: “The Forgotten Garden” (廃園) by Yoshinobu Morikawa (森川義信)

Despite the many prose translations I’ve done, I’ve never attempted to translate an entire poem from Japanese to English before. That’s partially because I generally don’t read poetry that often (in either Japanese or English), and hence am even less comfortable trying to translate it. Another reason is that generally I’m pretty picky about what… Read More »