I frequently read words like “flowing prose” “beautifully written” but all attributed to the original author. So many reviewers don’t mention the translator, and one wonders how the reader imagines the book got from Japanese to English. Second best would be the pleasure of holding in your hand a book that you translated.Īnd for a response that covers both best and worse, there is the delight of seeing a good review of a book you’ve translated that mentions the translator’s name and even praises their work! Or to feel that you found the author or characters’ voices. The joy at finding just the right word or phrase to express the Japanese. What are the best and worst parts of your job? There was a several year gap in my resume as I tried to build new connections with publishers. Sadly, Kodansha International closed down and JLPP no longer sponsors translations. Shortly after getting my MA I tried out to be a translator for the Japanese Literature Publishing Project and Kodansha International, and my first few jobs were for those organizations.įollowing on from the theme of my dissertation, all of the authors I translated were women. It was a book by a woman about the struggle of OLs to find meaning in their lives and jobs, and it was the first full-length novel I’d read in Japanese. My dissertation was an annotated translation of an excerpt from the novel Onnatachi no Jihaado by Shinoda Setsuko. (This used to be offered to people living in Japan as a distance learning qualification, but sadly not anymore.) I became a literary translator after completing the MA in Advanced Japanese Studies from Sheffield University in the UK. I still speak passable French but my German comes out as Japanese these days. The literature of both languages as well as translation were my favourite parts of my course.Īfter graduation, I moved to Japan to teach English, and my love of Japanese began. Then I majored in French at University, keeping up the German too for a while. I studied French from age 11 at school in the UK and loved it, so went ahead and chose German as an optional subject. How many languages do you speak and what made you learn them?
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