Articles
October 2, 2013
Sixty Years of Journal-Keeping
By Donald Richie
A journal is a personal record of occurrences, experiences, and reflections that is kept on a regular basis. “A regular basis” is the operative part of that definition. It’s a diary. And people have kept them over the centuries, for all sorts of reasons: as an aide-memoire, as a kind of a daybook, or as a companion. No matter how you... more
September 16, 2013
Special SWET Report: Susan Bassnett on Translation as a Shaping Force in English
Juliet Winters Carpenter
This article is a summary of a talk given by Professor Susan Bassnett of the University of Warwick, at the plenary session of the annual conference of the Japan Association of College English Teachers, with support from the British Council, held at Kyoto University, Clock Tower Hall, 31 August 2013. Professor Bassnett is author of Translation Studies (4th edition; London & New... more
April 25, 2013
Spirited Away: Translating Hideo Furukawa
by Hart Larrabee
Nagano-based translator Hart Larrabee reflects on his experience at the July 2012 summer workshop at the British Centre for Literary Translation. Those who are considering attending this year’s workshop (applications are due 7 May 2013) may also wish to read descriptions of the 2010 and 2011 workshops that were written by Ginny Tapley Takemori and Alison Watts... more
March 5, 2013
Judith Clancy and the Kyoto Machiya Restaurant Guide
Judith Clancy at home in her remodeled machiya-style house (click to enlarge)
Long-time Kyoto resident Judith Clancy answers questions about the ups and downs of publishing her go-to guide for savoring the distinctive culture of Kyoto, and what she learned from the process. Her publisher, Stone Bridge Press owner Peter Goodman, tells the... more
February 18, 2013
Good Farm Food: Nancy Singleton Hachisu Cooks for SWET
“I communicate through food,” said Nancy Singleton Hachisu, so she brought her food from the countryside of Saitama prefecture to the kitchen-equipped meeting room of the Wesley Center in Minami Aoyama and cooked for 31 SWET members and their friends on a cold late-January Friday night.
Sunny-yellow “soy sauce marinated eggs” and tasty,... more
February 3, 2013
Translating Shiba Ryōtarō’s Saka no Ue no Kumo
In 2009, translation got underway of best-selling novelist Shiba Ryōtarō’s eight-volume Saka no ue no kumo (English title, Clouds Above the Hill), a planned three-year project funded through Japan Documents, an independent publisher under the direction of Saitō Sumio. The translators are Juliet Winters Carpenter (professor, Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts, Kyoto), Andrew Cobbing (professor, University of... more