August 14, 2005

SWET Newsletter, Number 108

Contents

How We Got Here: Children’s Book Artist
by John Shelley
Can a U.K. expatriate illustrator of children’s books launch a successful career in Japan? John Shelley sketches his Tokyo-based career between advertising illustration and his true love of children’s books. Examples of his work can be seen on his website.

Transmitting Japan: The TES-Net Initiative
by Noda Makito and Lynne E. Riggs
Needed: Better matchmaking between Japanese scholars/specialists seeking to participate in international debates and professional translators, editors, and rewriters who can support their endeavors. But the international communication gap involves much more, as revealed in discussions held at a brainstorming conference held in Kyoto March 18, 2005, to discuss a proposalto launch the Translation and Editing Support Network (TES-Net).

SWET on Saturdays/February: Literature for Young People
(SCBWI Tokyo and Yoshida Yurika)
SWET and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) co-sponsored an event February 26, 2005, introducing SCBWI and presenting a talk by Yoshida Yurika, Japan Foreign-Rights Centre, on the work of the Centre and some of the issues it faces in the export of Japanese book rights.

Of Mouse and Mice
(New Arthur Binard Translation)
Arthur Binard, who has newly translated Iwamura Kazuo’s lively series of picture books The Family of Fourteen, (see No. 103 report, “Translating Back and Forth”), shares one of many anecdotes about his work on the five English titles to be published in September.

Childhood in Books
(David Almond)
Award-winning author David Almond joined SCBWI in Tokyo on April 5th. Visiting international schools and giving a reading for the recent Japanese publication of his novel, The Fire-Eaters (Hodder Children’s Books, 2004), Almond talked about his writing process and gave advice about how to tap into the imagination in writing for young people.

Wordsmiths Unite!
(SWET Open Forum)
At this year’s networking and information-sharing event on March 26, aspiring writers, editors and translators got the chance to pick the brains of SWET veterans Hugh Ashton, Fred Uleman, Tim Young, Lynne Riggs, Michael McDonald, Becky Davis, Julie Kuma, and Doreen Simmons about professional wordsmithing in Tokyo. Focused on practicalities, the informal discussion covered a wide range of topics, from finding work to honing those all-important language skills to choosing a good dictionary.

Threads on SWET-L: Linguistic Nitty-Gritty
by Torkil Christensen
Dramas of spelling, the Hotchkiss, and Alan Smithee spring to life through skillful capture of some postings by the thoughtful, erudite, amusing, and ever-courteous listees of SWET-L. Three winter months in the lives of SWETers in cyberspace are handily digested for ease of use.

Book Review
Botchan: A Modern Classic
by William Wetherall. A review of Botchan.
Natsume Sōseki. Newly translated by Joel Cohn. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, 176 pp. ISBN 4-7700-2122-4. Hardback ¥2,400. A new English translation of Natsume Sōseki’s Botchan invites investigation of variations in the five available translations dating from the early twentieth century. Readability for young, trendy readers and living up to advertising copy are intriguing considerations as well, and William Wetherall addresses them all.