Tag Archives: short story

Japanese short story highlight: Yoko Ogawa’s “Hexagonal Room” (6角形の小部屋)

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 »

The making of an E-book: Science: Hopes & Fears (Juza Unno short story compilation)

In this article, I’d like to talk about the making of my recently published book Science: Hopes & Fears (Volume 1), which is a compilation of Juza Unno’s science fiction stories translated into English. (You can find it here on Amazon) Although I had been considering it for some time, this was my first attempt… Read More »

Taking translation to the next level: Getting Published

For nearly two years I’ve been involved in a series of hobby translation projects, which I’d estimate to be at least 50 chapters and several hundreds of pages. My purpose for these was to improve my Japanese translation abilities on a variety of authors and genres, and I have been very satisfied with what I’ve… Read More »

Japanese Site Review: カクヨム (kakuyomu) – a great place for free novels and short stories

Sometime last year I wrote a review of the site “syosetu.com” (小説家になろう) which is a nice place to get your fill of free (and legal) Japanese novels and short stories. Since then, I have been a pretty heavy user of the site, reading portions of a great many stories, and writing emails to handful of authors to get… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” Chapter 3: Lonesome Pop Star (Part 1)

This is Chapter 3 of the novel “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” by Yama Yamasaki (山崎山). I’ve talked to the author and gotten his permission to translate and put it on my blog. The story’s original table of contents and summary can be seen in Japanese here. You can see the original Chapter 3 in Japanese here. As… Read More »

Japanese expression “〜するも” (~suru mo) and vagueness of the が (ga) particle

Recently I read the very enjoyable short story “麦本三歩は今日が好き” by 住野よる in the literary magazine 小説幻冬 (Dec 2016 edition). I even translated a short excerpt of it into English here. There was one line of the story whose grammar I just couldn’t figure out, and I thought that it was either some strange pattern I had never… Read More »

Japanese Short Story Translation Excerpt: “A Perfect Day For Miho Mugimoto” (麦本三歩は今日が好き) By Yoru Sumino (住野よる)

Recently I’ve been reading a few stories from the magazine “小説幻冬” (December 2016 edition), and I came across one that was particularly entertaining. This story is told in monologue-style, and though little happens in terms of action, I really like how the main character’s personality is portrayed and could really empathize with her. I couldn’t help but… Read More »

Japanese historical short story review: 野望の狭間 (Opposing Ambitions) by 天野純稀 (Sumiki Amano)

Recently at a Kinonuniya bookstore I picked up the 2nd edition (2号)of the book 小説幻冬 (Shousetsu Gentou) which is a compendium of Japanese short stories. I chose this because I was looking for something to read on a holiday trip, and didn’t want to get involved a long story, so though short stories would be perfect. When I… Read More »

Japanese literature review: Kenji Miyazawa’s “Matasaburo of the Wind”

I’ll have to just come out and admit it: of all of the books I have read there is a small group I never made it to the end of, including both Japanese and English works. One of these is Kenji Miyazawa’s (宮沢賢治) “Night on the Galactic Railroad” (銀河鉄道の夜) which was a deeply moving story when… Read More »