Articles

July 23, 2010

The Hadashi no Gen Project

by Alan Gleason

Alan Gleason’s experience as a translator began in 1977 with the manga Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen), as part of a volunteer project that continued for 30 years. Project Gen inadvertently became the world’s first publisher of manga in translation when it issued Barefoot Gen Volume One in 1978. With the tenth and final English volume... more

January 28, 2010

About Mori Ōgai on Translation

by Kay Vreeland

The American Lauren Elkin writes a literary blog in Paris and she posted on Mori Ōgai on translation and fallacy. A snippet: “Ōgai talks about the virtues of being ‘wrong’ in translation—adding or detracting from the original text; of most interest, I think, is the final section in which he contemplates how far... more

July 21, 2009

Self-Publishing a Self-Initiated Translation

A professional non-fiction translator for over 40 years, Fred Uleman, in September 2009, self-published Rethinking the Constitution: An Anthology of Japanese Opinion, a translation of Kodansha’s 2004 Nihon no kenpo: Kokumin shuken no ronten. SWET asked Uleman how he came to translate and publish a book he was not paid to do, and what it involved.

July 8, 2009

Kurodahan: Selling to a Niche

by Ginny Tapley

Based in Fukuoka, Kyushu, far from the usual centers of publishing, Edward Lipsett, Stephen Carter and Chris Ryal have established Kurodahan Press, a new type of publisher now entering its fifth year. Having started with Mayumura Taku’s Administrator in 2003, Kurodahan specializes in translated Japanese literature, particularly genre fiction such as science fiction, horror, fantasy, and mystery. Ultimately, however, they aim... more

July 1, 2009

Young Adult Fantasy in Translation: An Interview with Cathy Hirano

by Misa Dikengil

SWET member Cathy Hirano is a Japanese-English translator living in Shikoku. Her translation of the young adult (YA) novel The Friends by Kazumi Yumoto (Natsu no niwa; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996) won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for children's literature in translation and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for children's fiction (both in 1997). Misa Dikengil interviewed Hirano via... more

April 4, 2007

Nurturing Literature in Translation

by Ginny Tapley • Interview with Chad W. Post  Among initiatives aimed at stimulating interest in the English-speaking world for reading literature in translation is the work of Dalkey Archive Press and Reading the World. SWET interviewed Chad W. Post, who has been active in both these initiatives and whose career is devoted to encouraging translation and international literature. (This is the full... more