Articles
October 9, 2022
If, for J-E Translators
If you can render prose in real English idiom While all about you Cling rigidly to translation word-for-word; If you can stand by natural wording Though clients claim they know better, But respect their sensibilities as far as conscience can; If you can grapple with obscurantism And articulate it in clear expository style; Or, being left with ambiguity, not perpetuate ambiguity, Or, given insider codes, not let cryptic phrases... more
May 13, 2020
From Behind Cloistered Walls: A Tale of Two Translations
Lynne E. Riggs
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In February 2009, In Iris Fields: Remembrances and Poetry by Abbess Kasanoin Jikun, edited by Barbara Ruch and Katsura Michiyo, was published by Tankōsha (Kyoto). The book’s prose was translated by Beth Cary and its numerous poems by Janine Beichman. In early April, Amamonzeki—A Hidden Heritage: Treasures of the Japanese Imperial Convents, edited by... more
June 5, 2017
Workshop: Cultural Translation and the Information Gap
by Richard Medhurst
Japanese and English readers come from different cultural backgrounds. References that are familiar to the former, whether from tradition or popular culture, may baffle the latter. The SWET workshop I led on May 17, 2017 tackled cultural translation for the general reader, considering how to handle the “information gap” between the two kinds of readers with the aim... more
March 28, 2016
Translation in the “Age of English”
Juliet Winters Carpenter
On December 6, 2014, in Osaka, Juliet Winters Carpenter, professor at Doshisha Women’s College and a prolific translator, spoke about translating the work of Minae Mizumura and gave a workshop on a passage from The Fall of Language in the Age of English (Columbia University Press, 2015). This article, with some of the workshop results included at the... more
December 17, 2014
Pianyan, Little Keys, and Yumiko Sakuma
By Deborah Iwabuchi
When SWET member Deborah Iwabuchi translated a Japanese children’s book into English, she, a collaborator, and the author all read an article in the September–October 2011 issue of Nihon jidō bungaku (Japanese Children’s Literature).
In the article, “Honyaku-tte nan da” (What Exactly Is Translation?), English-to-Japanese translator Yumiko Sakuma describes her career and conveys the... more
September 23, 2014
True Collaboration on A True Novel
Interview by Anna Zielinska-Elliott and Lynne E. Riggs
Juliet Winters Carpenter is a well-known translator of Japanese literature and research professor at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts in Kyoto. Her list of translations is very long and includes works by Abe Kōbō, Tawara Machi, Enchi Fumiko, Shiba Ryōtarō, and many other writers. Her recent translation of Minae Mizumura’s* A... more