August 20, 2008

SWET Newsletter, No. 120

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• Translating from Japanese to English
  • Hearing Voices: My Encounters with Translation, by Rebecca Copeland
    Professor of Japanese literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Copeland has a special interest in Japanese literary women and their work. Her The Sound of the Wind: The Life and Works of Uno Chiyo was based on interviews with the writer herself. Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan includes a biographical study of Meiji-era translator Wakamatsu Shizuko. Along with solo and team translations of various fiction and non-fiction works, she recently translated Kirino Natsuo’s Grotesque (published by Knopf, 2007). In addition to teaching Japanese literature to undergraduates in the United States, Copeland initiated the translation course offered by the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies. On March 11, 2008, Copeland shared her experiences translating and working with editors of translations, and her observations on the marketing of Japanese literature in the West.
  • A Japanese Modernist Poet’s America, by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa
    In 2003, Shogo Oketani and SWET member Leza Lowitz received the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, awarded by the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University, for America and Other Poems by Ayukawa Nobuo (1920-1986). Published in 2008 by Kaya Press, America and Other Poems features poems by well-known modernist poet Ayukawa, selected and translated by the husband and wife team, with accompanying brief explanatory notes and essays in English. SWET member and poet Jane Joritz-Nakagawa interviewed Lowitz and Oketani.

• SWET and Other Events

  • Poetry in Japan and Asia, by Helen Polychronakos
    On May 25, 2008, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, John Gribble, and Alan Botsford Saitoh, three Japan-based poets, read from their own and others’ work and led a discussion about poetry in Japan and abroad. Helen Polychronakos is a freelance journalist who teaches writing at Aoyama Gakuin University.
  • Japan Image Use Conference, by Lynne E. Riggs (managing editor, Monumenta Nipponica)
    On June 23, 2008, the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources held a symposium in Tokyo (International House of Japan) entitled “Japanese Images: Using Them to Support Japan Studies Internationally.” Bringing together librarians, publishers, museum staff, editors, Japanese studies professors, and other interested parties, it was a landmark event in developing good practices for image use relating to Japan.

• SWET Member News

  • Tutoring Student Writing, by Allan Murphy
    Writer, editor, and English teacher Allan Murphy introduces Sophia University‘s successful Writing Center, now in its fourth year of operation. SWET thanks Faculty of Liberal Arts professor Robert Witmer for his cooperation in the preparation of this article.

• Threads on SWET-L

  • Chestnuts, Frogs, and Paddywhacks, by Torkil Christensen
    The dialogue on SWET-L entered the New Year with customer-harassing natives at the ready: wordsmiths’ queries were posed and literally and competently resolved.

• A Tribute

  • Fukuda Naomi: The Librarians’ Librarian, by Koide Izumi
    Fukuda Naomi (1907-2007) is a heroine among Japanese and Japanese studies librarians. Having served as a bridge supporting librarianship in Japan during and after the Occupation (1945-1952), she contributed to the strengthening of major libraries and the advance of professional library work in Japan and helped strengthen Japanese-language collections in U.S. libraries. Koide Izumi, current director of the Resource Center for the History of Entrepreneurship at the Shibusawa Ei’ichi Memorial Foundation, worked at International House of Japan from 1980 to 2003, and was chief librarian, 1990-2001.

• SWET Scenes

  • Nitobe Thesaurus: Window on an Era, by Lynne E. Riggs
    Nearly a century ago, in 1932, Meiji-era educator and writer Nitobe Inazō (1862-1933) purchased a copy of the 1930 imprint of Roget’s International Thesaurus. Passed down to the present as a valued memento, it is now in the possession of Kato Mikio, Senior Fellow at the International House of Japan. Kato told SWET the story of this much-treasured writing tool.