SCBWI Japan Translation Days 2022 on Zoom

By Yui Kajita, Munich, Germany

The biennial SCBWI Japan Translation Day(s) returned for its seventh run in November 2022 with another exciting line-up. As with the last event in 2020, it took place over Zoom, allowing speakers and participants to gather from different countries all over the world, including Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Thailand, the UK, and the US. Always highly anticipated by both familiar faces and newcomers, this year’s program was once again full of useful information, inspiring anecdotes, and translation conundrums that everyone loves to mull over.

A Conversation with Editor Kathleen Merz, interviewed by Deborah Iwabuchi

Editorial Director Kathleen Merz

Kicking off Day One (November 12, 2022) was a live interview with Kathleen Merz, Editorial Director at Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, led by Deborah Iwabuchi. We heard about how Eerdmans came to focus on children’s books in translation: Garmann’s Summer (by Stian Hole, translated by Don Bartlett), which won the Batchelder Award, was an important starting point, and now at least half of the titles they publish each year are translations. Historically, they’ve found many European titles through the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, but they are eager to branch out to Latin American, Asian, and African publishers as well to expand the range of their list.

While Eerdmans originally specialized in theological textbooks (their history goes back to 1911), Kathleen is interested in a broad range of books, both fiction and non-fiction, picture books and middle grade. She loves to find books that are great conversation starters, introducing kids to things they might not be familiar with. For example, some favorites that she recently edited include a beautifully illustrated book about the Spanish Civil War, called Different (written by Mónica Montañés, illustrated by Eva Sánchez Gómez, translated by Lawrence Schimel) and a picture book introduction to paleontology, One Million Oysters on Top of the Mountain (written by Alex Nogués, illustrated by Miren Asiain Lora, translated by Lawrence Schimel), which is finding its way into school curricula. Kathleen values storytelling most of all, where different cultures, traditions, and so on are lived out as part of the narrative rather than shoehorned into the moral of the story.

It was interesting to hear about the part translators can play even in a book’s format: at Lawrence Schimel’s suggestion, Eerdmans took the text-dense picture book, Different, and transformed it into an illustrated middle-grade novel, which made it more accessible for the right US readership.

Though Kathleen often finds new translators through networks, she also shared useful tips on what she’d like to see in a pitch. Participating in this kind of SCBWI event is certainly another way for emerging translators to get their foot in the door.

Jocelyne Allen on Translating Colorful by Eto Mori, introduced by Holly Thompson

Translator Jocelyne Allen

After the “speed share” session, where the group got to hear from each participant about their current project, Jocelyne Allen gave a dynamic talk on how she came to translate the beloved classic Colorful (Counterpoint Press, 2021) by Eto Mori and the process of working closely with the editor, Yukiko Tominaga, to shape the voice of the novel.

Jocelyne was approached by Counterpoint Press to translate the book—she had been recommended to them by the foreign licensing team at Bungeishunju, whom she had known for years, and it also helped that the editor at Counterpoint had read Jocelyne’s translation of A Small Charred Face by Kazuki Sakuraba before. Jocelyne said it was a joy to work with Counterpoint, from the sample translation and grant application stage all the way to book production, as they truly respected her work as a translator.

Diving into the nitty-gritty details of the translation process of Eto Mori’s deceptively simple prose, Jocelyne offered so many juicy examples of what thoughts went into certain stylistic choices and how she dealt with particularly tricky issues, ranging from questions of tone and register to recurring keywords, and how to localize the text with minimal glossing. For example, she found a way to channel the character Hiroka’s childish, coquettish way of talking in English by using babyish words (like “horsey” for horse), peppering her dialogue with “like” and “so” (as in “so pretty”), and opting for more descriptive dialogue markers (“squeal” or “coo” instead of just “said”). She also shared how she arrived at a translation of the word 再挑戦 (rematch? re-try? do-over? second chance?) that would actually sound like a 14-year-old boy while also fulfilling its role as a keyword for the theme of the novel.

It was engrossing to hear how she brought the text to life in English, and how she worked together with her editor to make it happen.

You can find out more about Colorful and Jocelyne’s translation in this in-depth interview by Holly Thompson.

Presentation and Discussion of Japan Foundation Grant Funding by Aya Tamura from The Japan Foundation

Aya Tamura from The Japan Foundation

One funding scheme that supported both Jocelyne’s translation of Colorful and Avery Fischer Udagawa’s translation of Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba was the Japan Foundation’s Support Program for Translation and Publication.

Aya Tamura, who works in the Arts and Culture Department’s Planning and Coordination / Literary Arts Section at the Japan Foundation, gave a thorough presentation on the Japan Foundation’s wide-ranging initiatives, especially the evolution and the reach of their translation support program. To date, they have supported the publication of nearly 1,500 books in 75 countries or regions, translated into 52 different languages. Excitingly for the kidlit community, they have recently launched Lifelong Favorites, a selection of children’s books that are or are expected to become classics that many children grow up with in Japan, which will be given priority in their support program selection. Though they had always been open to awarding grants for children’s literature, now, with this list, they hope to encourage more applications from children’s publishers.

While the grant application must be submitted by publishers, not individual translators, the Japan Foundation is enthusiastic about supporting the work of translators, and Aya invited ideas from the participants as well. The Japan Foundation’s recent projects include the Translator’s Roundtable Series (More than Worth Sharing, which garnered much attention from the translator community), the Translator Spotlight video interview series, and the Writing to Meet You series (an exchange of letters between authors). Her presentation offered information on other governmental support programs as well, including Japan Book Bank, an online catalogue of rights to Japanese content. Translators can look forward to more support initiatives from the Japan Foundation in the future!

Illustrator Naomi Kojima

We were also treated to an insider’s look at Naomi Kojima’s process of creating the banner and logo for Lifelong Favorites. She walked us through how she developed the illustration concept, starting from the idea of flying books, gradually evolving into the joy of welcoming and meeting a good book. Her brainstorming sketches were delightful to see.

A few examples of Naomi Kojima’s sketches for Lifelong Favorites

A Conversation with Editor Marilyn Brigham, interviewed by Andrew Wong

Senior Editor Marilyn Brigham

Day Two (November 19, 2022) began with an interview with Marilyn Brigham, led by Andrew Wong. Marilyn is Senior Editor at Two Lions and Amazon Crossing Kids, the two children’s book imprints at Amazon Publishing, and she shared how the imprints and she herself came to be involved in translated children’s books, the imprints’ commitment to regional diversity, and what they look for in kidlit in translation.

Observing the big push in recent years for diverse children’s literature as a way of getting fresh voices and perspectives, Marilyn is hopeful that an increasing openness to translations will continue in the future. Amazon Crossing’s list has a good mix of commercial and literary titles, and the books she has worked on have won both critical and popular acclaim, including multiple USBBY Outstanding International Book awards and a Goodreads Choice Award finalist for Best Picture Book. She is also eager to expand their middle-grade list, especially story-driven books with a commercial plot: she is currently working on a mythological fantasy story from Kazakhstan and a historical crime-mystery series from Sweden. Her enthusiasm was infectious as she introduced two brand new books, My GrandMom (by Gee-eun Lee, translated by Sophie Bowman) and Piece by Piece (by David Aguilar and Ferran Aguilar, translated by Lawrence Schimel).

She is always on the look-out for books, and there are many ways in which she meets new translators: through networks, recommendations from publishers, or books that come with the translator attached.

In her editorial choices, she prefers to retain the source culture as much as possible—sometimes adding a little glossary, or a publisher’s note, depending on the project—because she likes the books to have a sense of place. “Books can show all the ways we’re different, and all the ways we’re the same, and that’s the beauty of it.”

Takami Nieda on Translating The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart by Chesil, introduced by Alec McAulay

Translator Takami Nieda

Takami Nieda gave a fascinating talk on her experience of translating The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart (Soho Teen) by Chesil. We heard the surprising story of how this book came to be in the first place—Chesil was initially pursuing a career in acting, but she challenged herself to write a novel to mark the end of her twenties, and this very first book she wrote was shortlisted for the Akutagawa Prize. The protagonist, a zainichi teen straddling different cultures, is also a blossoming writer, and it is a story of how she reclaims or makes sense of her past and of herself through writing.

Because of her own background as an Asian American, the novel’s themes of “in-between-ness” resonated with Takami. As with Kazuki Kaneshiro’s Go, another book she translated, Chesil’s work struck her as the kind of story she wished she had had access to as she was growing up in the US. At the same time, it’s a “teachable story,” which she is always looking out for as a community college teacher.

Takami’s talk explored various questions, such as how much cultural bridging we should do in children’s books. She resists that idea and usually tries to do as little of it as possible, unless it’s absolutely essential for the story, so that readers can encounter stories that don’t center around their own culture or experience—after all, it’s only natural for readers to come across things they don’t understand.

Takami Nieda discusses translating a key phrase in The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart.

There’s often talk about “what’s lost in translation,” but it was great to hear examples of what’s gained instead. For instance, the English novel could play up the theme of crossing cultural identities by varying the spelling of the protagonist’s name depending on where she was: Ginny Park in Oregon and Pak Jinhee in Japan. Also, since English can’t skip over pronouns as much as Japanese does, the star that Ginny has a conversation with was written with she/her, enhancing the sense of sisterhood between them. Chesil was very accommodating when discussing all these questions, as she came to the project with the understanding that a translation of her novel would be another being on its own.

You can read more about the book and Takami’s translation in this interview by Susan Jones.

After her talk, Takami valiantly led a translation workshop, critiquing the participants’ translations of an excerpt from Natsuki Koyata’s 『望むのは』, a book about difference and accepting difference—where your classmate’s mother can be a gorilla, and your friend can have a crush on an ostrich—which won the Sense of Gender Award in 2017. The group had a lot of fun picking apart questions of word-choice, sentence structures, condensation and embellishment, and so on, including how that slippery wasei-eigo イメージ (a katakana version of “image,” widely used for an impression, a look, how one perceives someone, how one visualizes an action or idea, etc.) can be handled as its meaning shifts throughout the passage.

You can read seven translations of the passage, including Takami’s, here.

Overall, Translation Days 2022 was a stimulating event, giving us renewed energy to carry on with our current projects and discover new ones. These inspiring conversations and a generous session on submission opportunities(for participants only), with practical tips on how to find leads and build connections, are sure to keep the fire going!

All credit goes to the lead organizer, Avery Fischer Udagawa, and the SCBWI Japan regional team, Mariko Nagai, Mari Boyle, Alec McAulay, and Naomi Kojima, for their enthusiasm for all things world kid lit and their dedication to putting together a wonderful program for the community.

One Passage, Seven Translations—Natsuki Koyata

By Avery Fischer Udagawa, Bangkok

On November 19, Day 2 of SCBWI Japan Translation Days 2022, Takami Nieda led participants in a translation workshop using a passage from 望むのは by Natsuki Koyata. This is a YA-appropriate novel that Nieda is translating as The Brief Colorful Year of Being Fifteen; her engaging synopsis and several pages of context for the workshop passage appear here.

Six translators submitted translations of the passage, which were then blinded and discussed in a session open to all participants. Below are the original passage by Koyata, the six submitted translations, and a sample translation by Takami Nieda. The two characters speaking are the teens Koharu (who speaks first) and Ayumu; Ayumu is a ballet dancer.

Original Passage

「それが何？　イメージと違ってがっかりって言いたいの？」口をついて出たその言葉は、しかし、その瞬間に小春の胸を貫いた。歩くんが都合のいい弱者でなかったことがどんなに自分を失望させたか、その失望がどんなに醜く、恥ずべきものだったか、小春はその痛みで初めて奥まで理解した。「あんたのイメージなんかどうだっていい」とそれでもなぜだか、自分自身を打ちのめしたくて言葉を継いだ。「これが現実のわたしだもん。あんたのイメージなんか、あんたのイメージする小春なんかぶっ殺してやる」

「殺せないよ。ぼくのイメージは本物だもん」たじろぎもせず、歩くんは返した。「ぼくのイメージはいつだって本物。いつだって現実だよ。脚はどの軌道を通るか、指先はどの高さまで達するか、イメージするからきれいに飛べる。イメージがすべてだ」そこで不意に、小春はぐらりと足元が揺らぐのを感じたが、「ぼくは白鳥だ。ぼくは王子だ」という屈強な宣言が、反対側から跳ね上げて小春を立たせた。「誰が気に入らなくたって、ぼくはイメージし続ける。そうして現実を作り続ける。つまらない幻想に、もうこれ以上振り回されたくないから」 

[Source: Nozomu no wa by Natsuki Koyata (Shinchosha, 2017)]

Translation A

“So, what? Disappointed I wasn’t like you thought?” Koharu spat.

Yet even as the words flew from her mouth, pain lanced across her chest. The hideous disappointment of Ayumu’s revelation, the sharp sting of shame, was like a physical blow.

“Who cares about what you think of me anyway,” she continued, inexplicably, somehow bent on making the situation worse. “This is who I really am. So whoever this imaginary version of Koharu is in your head, it’s time for her to die—bury her. She doesn’t exist.”

“You can’t just erase her,” Ayumu replied, unruffled. “What do you mean ‘not real’? My perception of you is a real thing—imagination is the beginning of reality. I can leap when I dance because I first imagine the arc of my legs, how my arms will extend. Perception is everything.” He paused.

“I become a regal swan. A prince.”

Koharu, who had begun to sag under the weight of his words, startled to attention at this sudden change of direction.

“If someone doesn’t like me,” he continued, “I continue with my image of myself anyway. This is how you create reality. I refuse to waste my time any more being boxed in by what is ‘normal.’”

Translation B

“So what are you getting at? Are you saying that you’re disappointed because I’m not who you thought I was?”

The words flew out of her mouth, but at the same time, they also pierced her heart. She had been disappointed when she realized that Ayumu wasn’t just some wishy-washy wimp, and this pain made her realize for the first time deep inside just how disgusting and disgraceful that disappointment was.

“I don’t care what your image of me is.”

But for some reason, she wanted to find words to continue bashing herself.

“This is the real me. Whatever image you have, I’ll destroy it – I’ll kill your Koharu.”

“You can’t. My images are real.”

Ayumu countered without hesitation.

“My images have always been real. The arc my feet will draw. The height my toes will reach. I can execute a jump well because I envision it. My images are everything.”

A sudden weakness in the legs caught Koharu off guard, but the defiant cries of “I am a swan. I am a prince.” bouncing up from the other side helped her stay on her feet.

“I’ll keep creating my images even if people don’t like it. This is how I create my reality. I’m tired of going around chasing some empty fantasy.”

Translation C

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying you’re disappointed that I don’t live up to your image of me?” The words that came rushing out of Koharu’s mouth somehow stabbed her chest in the same moment. The pain caused her to perceive fully for the first time how ugly and shameful her own dismay had been, over Ayumu not being some weakling who could make her own life easier. “What do I care about your image of me?” she added, feeling that she wanted to clobber herself. “This is the real me,” she said. “Your image is nothing. I’ll murder the Koharu in your image!”

“You can’t murder her. My images are real,” Ayumu replied, not even flinching. “My images are always real. They become reality. I can jump because I visualize the arc my legs will trace, the height my fingertips will reach. The mental image is everything.

“I am a swan. I am a prince!”

Koharu felt her legs tremble as she listened to him, but his firm declaration from across the way brought her to her feet.

“No matter who hates it, I am going to keep visualizing,” he told her. “I am going to keep creating reality. I am sick of being tossed around by silly fantasies.”

Translation D

“What’s that all supposed to mean? I’m not like you imagined and now you’re disappointed?” Those were the words that spilled out, and the instant Koharu said them they pierced her soul. She suddenly understood how letdown she was that Ayumu wasn’t some weakling she could walk all over. On top of that she was crushed to realize how malicious that disappointment was—how shameful. And the pain of that shame took the revelation even deeper. “Well, I couldn’t care less how you think of me.” Now she felt like she was lashing out at herself, not Ayumu. “This is me. It’s who I am. I’ll murder that Koharu you think you know. The one in your head.”

“You can’t kill her. My images are the reality,” Ayumu came back without flinching. “Every image I’ve ever had is reality. I know which direction your legs will take you and how high your fingers can reach. You can fly because I’ve imagined it. My images of you are everything.” At that moment Koharu felt her knees buckle, until she heard Ayumu declare, “I’m a swan. I’m a prince!” and the words flew over from him to stand her back up. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, I won’t stop creating images, or reality. I’m not going to let myself get sucked in to any more inane illusions.”

Translation E

“So what? Do you want to say that you are disappointed that the picture you had of me is wrong?” These words were pouring out of Koharu’s mouth but, at the same time, they penetrated her heart. For the first time, deep down, Koharu understood how disappointed it had made her that Ayumu is not a pitiful and weak person; how ugly and embarrassing this disappointment is, and the hurt. “I don’t care what picture you have of me,” and still, for some reason, carried on beating herself up. “Because this is the real me. I will kill your picture, the picture you have of me.”

“You can’t kill it. My picture is the real thing,” Ayumu argued without flinching. “My picture is always the real thing. Always reality you know. What trajectory my feet will take; what height my fingertips will reach; because I picture it, I will fly beautifully. Visualisation is everything.” At that point, Koharu suddenly felt her confidence waver. Ayumu made a strong statement, “I am a swan. I am a prince”, which made things clear to Koharu. “Even if someone doesn’t like it, I continue with the visualisation. That way I can create my own reality. Because I don’t want to be affected by a meaningless illusion anymore,” said Ayumu.

Translation F

“And so what? You’re disappointed ’cause I’m not the kinda girl you thought I was, is that it?”

The words flew out of her mouth before she knew it, but at the same time, it sliced through her own heart. As soon as it stung her, Koharu realized deep down just how much she’d been disappointed that Ayumu wasn’t the convenient underdog that she’d imagined him to be, and just how ugly that disappointment was, something to be ashamed of.

“I don’t care what you think of me,” she pressed on, somehow feeling the urge to keep beating herself up. “This is the real me. Who cares how you see me? That Koharu in your head? I’ll just kill her off.”

“You can’t kill her. How I see you is real,” Ayumu answered, without batting an eyelash. “How I see things is always real. It’s always reality. It’s because I visualize it in my head—the arc that my legs will trace, how high my fingertips will reach—it’s because I see all that, that I can do a clean leap.” Koharu’s legs suddenly felt wobbly, but what Ayumu said next, his iron declaration, made her shoot up straight.

“I’m a swan. I’m a prince.”

He went on, “No matter what anyone says, I’ll keep envisioning things. And that’s how I’ll create the reality. I’m tired of getting pushed around by useless illusions.”

Sample Translation by Takami Nieda

“What? You’re disappointed I wasn’t who you imagined, is that it?” she shot back.

As the words tumbled out of her mouth, something pricked her heart. It was the shameful sting of having assumed Ayumu was a pushover who needed protecting.

“Who cares what you think anyway?” She continued in spite of herself, “This is who I am, Ayumu. So that precious illusion of Koharu you have in your head has to die.”

“You can’t kill her. My perception is real,” he said, without batting an eye. “When I’m dancing, I just have to imagine the arc of my legs, the shape of my arms all the way down to my fingertips—that’s how I can land a perfect jump. It all starts with perception.”

Raising his arms, he continued, “I can be a swan. I can be a prince!”

Just as her legs wobbled beneath her, Koharu felt herself being propped up by his confident declaration.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks about me,” he said. “I’m going to keep on imagining and making my own reality. I’m tired of getting yanked around by people’s assumptions.”

A Translator’s-Eye View of the SCBWI Japan 2022 YA/MG Novel Revision Workshop

By Andrew Wong, Tokyo

Back in May, as the winds brought a change in season, I recalled that SCBWI Japan was holding a MG/YA novel revision workshop over the summer. The initial call for participants was put out in March and included translators. With dates for submission, feedback, and wrap-up provided, participants were given the flexibility to work around their summer schedules. After dwelling on whether to take the plunge right up until late May, I finally did so, with a translation of a book that is a fun family favorite. Having worked on either picture books or excerpts before, a novel was a first for me.

Pushing myself through a full novel from scratch, I experienced among other things the arduous process of keeping the style of the narrative and the voices of the characters consistent—and the enormous discipline required to complete a draft within a set time frame (on spec and after checking the rights, of course!). By the time I had finished translating and thoroughly re-enjoying the story, I was worried that it might read as though I had put the original under a microscope. Unsure whether my rendering would convey the story as well as the original had, clicking that Send button was more frightening than it was liberating at the time.

Holly Thompson kindly shared her revision process with participants

The next part of the workshop was much more relaxing: reading! Assigned to a four-member critique group, I got to read other works in progress, and was reminded to provide, other than synopses, feedback on the positives in each manuscript because “writers in the drafting process get bruised easily!” We were also asked to raise questions to consider when revising.

I was glad when the synopses and feedback from my critique group assured me that my novel translation had gone down well. While there were compliments on the strength of the story and its vivid visualizations, I also received suggestions about parts that left hints of the Japanese original. Recognizing that positive feedback on the story was largely down to the hard work that had already gone into the published title, I was grateful to hear more ideas in the wrap-up session on how to think about shaping the work for English readers, and about how the characters sounded. Having people read our work is one thing, meeting them (even virtually) to actually talk about it is another! To round off the workshop, we shared our plans for revising our manuscripts.

Joining this workshop gave me a new perspective on decisions made in weaving storylines, shaping narrative arcs, and building characters. As creators and storytellers, while aspects of writing and translating naturally overlap, telling the same story well in another language brings about different challenges, some of which I’m sure will be visited by translation-focused events like Translation Days 2022 (just round the corner!).

For a writer’s view of the workshop, check out Alec MacAulay’s post on the SCBWI Japan Blog!

A Conversation with Translator Takami Nieda

By Susan E. Jones, Kobe

Translator Takami Nieda is back with a new YA translation! At SCBWI Japan in 2019, she described the translation and publication process of Kazuki Kaneshiro’s GO (Amazon Crossing, 2018, Freeman Book Award winner). Here, she talks about her latest YA translation: Chesil’s The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart (Soho Teen, 2022).

The source text『ジニのパズル』(Jini no pazuru / Ginny’s Puzzle) was nominated for an Akutagawa Prize in 2016 and stood out to Takami as one ripe for translation. Her depiction of Ginny, a conflicted Zainichi teen, lays bare the struggle many multicultural people experience.

Seventeen-year-old Ginny Park is about to get expelled from high school—again. Stephanie, the picture book author who took Ginny into her Oregon home after she was kicked out of school in Hawaii, isn’t upset; she only wants to know why. But Ginny has always been in-between. She can’t bring herself to open up to anyone about her past, or about what prompted her to flee her native Japan. Then, Ginny finds a mysterious scrawl among Stephanie’s scraps of paper and storybook drawings that changes everything: The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?

Ginny sets off on the road in search of an answer, with only her journal as a confidante. In witty and brutally honest vignettes, and interspersed with old letters from her expatriated family in North Korea, Ginny recounts her adolescence growing up Zainichi, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, and the incident that forced her to leave years prior.

Inspired by her own childhood, author Chesil creates a portrait of a girl who has been fighting alone against barriers of prejudice, nationality, and injustice all her life—and one searching for a place to belong. (Publisher’s synopsis.)

Susan: Given your translation of Kazuki Kaneshiro’s GO, Chesil’s The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart, and your forthcoming Travelers of a Hundred Years (by Lee Hoesung) and Yubi no Hone (by Hiroki Takahashi), we are definitely starting to see a theme in the works you gravitate toward translating. Are you becoming something of a spokesperson for ethnic Koreans in Japan? Have you been noticed or recognized in that community for your work? Have you been called upon to explain their position at any venue in the US?

Takami Nieda

Takami: No, I haven’t, which is a good thing, as there are any number of scholars and ethnic Koreans who can speak to these issues more knowledgeably than I can. I am careful to point out that Zainichi is a term that comes with some controversy, and some might resist that category, which often conflates diverse Korean populations who identify not as Zainichi but as Korean Japanese or Japanese. For this reason, it’s important that they have the agency to decide how they choose to be identified. In the case of Chesil, she identifies as a third-generation Korean born in Japan, and I’ve not seen her refer to herself as Zainichi.

Susan: How smooth was the editing process of this translation? I am particularly interested in the fact that this was a novel marketed to adults in Japan and YA in English regions. Did you or the editor change the writing style to make it more appropriate for a teen reader? Did you know as you translated that it would likely be marketed for teens?

Takami: Soho Teen picked up the translation, so I did know going in that the book would be marketed as YA, but I wouldn’t say that I changed the writing style—maybe in a couple of places here and there. The novel wasn’t necessarily written as a YA but the prose is very clean and economical. I just translated the original text, which is juiced with this righteous indignation and energy and quite lyrical in parts, as it was. I might have had a couple of words like “bad apple,” which the editor pointed out as not age appropriate (or archaic). There was also a reference to Robert DeNiro, which the editor felt needed a little help for a younger reader to understand. Those small changes I’m willing to make, but it was important to retain Chesil’s voice and writing style.

Susan: I want to ask you a bit more about your decision (or your joint decision with Chesil) about gendered pronouns. How did you/she end up deciding on them? For example, on p. 7, “the wearer” of the dirty shoes is referred to as “he” and I wonder if that was specified in the Japanese source text.

Takami: There were several places where I thought there was an opportunity to reinforce a recurring theme in the novel by specifying gender. I thought that gendering the star, which Ginny has a conversation with, as “she” might suggest a bit of a sisterhood between them. Also, gendering the sky as “she” might suggest something about whose fall was being “caught” in the end. I asked Chesil what she thought about it, and she agreed to the first, but opted to keep the pronoun of the sky non-specific, so readers could make their own conclusions about the ending.

(The gender of “the wearer” wasn’t specified in the source text, but I went with “he,” but really by default.)

Chesil

Susan: You mentioned that it was a positive experience to get feedback from Chesil as you translated. Would you prefer to do all of your translations in coordination with the author in this way? Was it a totally positive experience, or were there times when your own idea conflicted with hers but you felt obligated to meet her request?

Takami: This is the first time I was able to consult the author, so it was very exciting. I don’t think Chesil got as many questions from her editor as she’d gotten from me, and she was incredibly patient to answer every last one of them. We communicated entirely over email, but it felt to me that Chesil really understood the translation was going to be its own thing apart from the source text and she was quite keen to learn through our collaboration herself. It’s truly a gift to be able to work with a writer who understands that about translation, and I don’t know if that will ever happen again. I hope so!

Susan: What was the most challenging part of translating this book? I imagine I would have struggled with romanizing the Korean names and making it clear that Ginny is Jinhee. Did you need to do much explicitation to bridge cultural gaps?

Takami: I tried to figure out the romanization on my own, then consulted Chesil to make sure that I’d gotten the names right. We also were lucky to have a copy editor who was knowledgeable in the Korean language and culture, so they pointed out one or two issues with regard to names. Thank goodness for copy editors!

It’s interesting that in GO, Kazuki Kaneshiro purposefully wrote the opening of the book as a way to educate Japanese readers about how the Korean population came to Japan during WWII and the complexities of their citizenship status, knowing that Japanese readers wouldn’t know anything about it. On the other hand, Chesil gave almost no explanation, assuming perhaps that enough people would know about them or that readers would do the research themselves. So, if it’s not in the original text, I try not to add too much expository explanation because that can often get unwieldly and oftentimes takes away from the moment the writer is trying to capture.

Increasingly, I find myself resisting adding anything too much to bridge cultural gaps. In many ways English readers need to get used to the idea that not everything is going to be explained to them or center their experiences and expectations. The writer has allowed them a window into their world, which can be an immense act of courage and generosity, so readers ought to be willing do some work on their own to understand a culture or history they’re not familiar with.

Susan: Do you do anything in particular to absorb current teen lingo to incorporate in your translation?

Takami: As a community college teacher, I’m lucky to be around lots of young people every day, which helps me maintain an ear for lingo. But because a lot of slang tends to be regional or niche, and certainly short lived, the most current lingo isn’t always the best choice in translation. I usually try to go with lingo that’s had some staying power and has been around for a while.

Susan: Was it your idea to change the book title in translation or the publisher’s? Though long, I like it better than “Ginny’s Puzzle” for an English-speaking audience.

Takami: The first editor Amara Hoshijo suggested the title because of the character Ginny’s explanation of the phrase Sorairo wa kokoromoyou in the book. Amara had also mentioned that longish titles were a thing in YA literature and was concerned that the original title might suggest a story aimed at a younger audience. Chesil liked the suggestion, so we went with that.

Jacket for The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart (Soho Teen)

Susan: How has reception of this translation been so far? The theme of self-discovery and search for a place to fit in seem to be a universal struggle for teens (though Ginny obviously faces some extreme challenges). I imagine that this book would appeal to readers totally unfamiliar with Japan or ethnic Koreans in Japan.

Takami: Overall, the reception has been fantastic. Just as you’ve pointed out, many readers have noted the universal themes of identity and belonging, and have had their eyes opened to the ethnic Korean population in Japan. The novel packs a punch in a short 150+ pages, so I hope it will be taught in middle schools and high schools. I’d love to read some teen reviews of the novel as well!

Susan: This is perhaps a really insignificant question, but did you have any control over the fonts used in the hard copy version of the book? I quite liked the font used for handwriting and the chapter titles. (I missed this in the e-book!)

Takami: The typesetting was decided by the editing team and I’m rather fond of that font choice, too. You get the sense that you’re really reading Ginny’s handwritten journal entries as she tries to make sense of her past. I did request the Courier font for the screenplay scene between characters Yunmi and Jaehwan, because that’s the standard font for screenplays.

 

Takami Nieda reads from her work at the Sant Jordi USA Festival of Books, Roses, and the Arts.

Susan E. Jones, Associate Professor at Kobe College and longtime translator and teacher of translation, will serve as SCBWI Japan Translator Coordinator beginning in January 2023.

 

The Saga of Sweet Bean Paste: A Conversation with Alison Watts

By Deborah Iwabuchi, Maebashi, Japan

I first read Sweet Bean Paste, by Durian Sukegawa and translated by Alison Watts, in 2019. It was just after a string of deaths in the family and just before the pandemic. Recently I decided it was time to go back to the book and talk to the translator about it. After a re-read, I set up a video conference with Alison Watts and ended up glued to my seat as she told me about her life-changing experiences with Sweet Bean Paste and author Durian Sukegawa.

First of all, the book is about Sentaro, a man of about forty who has spent time in prison, is in debt, and works at a job he doesn’t particularly like. He makes dorayaki, sweet bean paste sandwiched between pancakes, and sells it from a little shop. The profits go to pay back a loan. His only pleasure in life is an occasional beer. One day, a woman named Tokue comes to call and apply for a job. She’s quite elderly and her hands are misshapen. Tokue turns out to be a former Hansen’s disease patient. Sentaro turns her down again and again, but her bean-paste making skills win him over. She cooks up huge batches of the bean paste for dorayaki as she teaches Sentaro how to make it too. The story includes the basic history of the treatment of people with Hansen’s disease in Japan, and takes the reader inside Tenshoen, based on Tama Zenshoen in Tokyo, a sanatorium where many people were forced to stay for decades even after they were cured.

Alison Watts, a translator and long-term resident of Japan, found Sweet Bean Paste in 2013 when a foreign rights agent working on behalf of Poplar, the original publisher, gave her the book to read.

Alison: I read the book and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to translate it, so I did a synopsis and sample translation, and gave it to the agent. After that I didn’t hear anything for a couple of years. Then in 2016, Oneworld Publications contacted me and I got the contract to translate it. They wanted me to consult with the author as well, but instead of contacting Durian by email, I turned up at a musical-dramatic reading performance he was giving in Nasu to introduce myself. He wasn’t even aware that a translator had been assigned, so it was a complete surprise to him. He offered to show me around Tama Zenshoen, which he said the French translator of Sweet Bean Paste also found very helpful.

(Deborah: For more on Alison’s meeting with Durian, see the story Alison wrote about it for the Words Without Borders website.)

Alison: After I got to know Durian, I discovered how his own colorful history led to writing this story. To start out, he wanted to go into publishing, but he was apparently barred from entering many companies because of colorblindness. He went on to run a bar in Shinjuku; did part-time work in production, radio, magazines; became a star on late-night radio giving straight, non-judgmental advice to teenagers; was a TV presenter; and was an agony uncle on a help line. He also formed a moderately successful punk spoken-word band, Screaming Poets, which broke up when one of the members was arrested for drugs. After that, he spent time in New York to take a break from life. There he studied English, sang in a band, wrote poetry, and was on hand for the devastation of 9-11.

Guitarist Pickles Tamura, Alison, and Durian outside the farm temple at the 2016 Nasu performance where Alison first met Durian.

After that, he came back to Japan and resumed many of his creative endeavors. The common thread in all his work, I think, is that he is on the side of the underdog and the powerless, those who don’t get their voices heard.

Durian had wanted to write about Hansen’s patients after the law enforcing their isolation was repealed in 1996, which made their situation more widely known, but he didn’t feel qualified. Then quite by coincidence in 2006, some former Hansen’s disease patients came to see a concert he gave, which resulted in his getting to know them and going to Tama Zenshoen. The end result was Sweet Bean Paste. Hansen’s disease was touchy subject matter and the novel was rejected by many publishers. Poplar Publishing finally took it on and the book took off. Naomi Kawase made a film, starring the late Kiki Kirin, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015.

Deborah: That’s some personal journey. What happened after you met him in Nasu?

Alison: A month later I toured Tama Zenshoen in Higashimurayama, Tokyo with Durian, the place on which the sanitorium in the novel is based, and also the location of the film. When we arrived, a musical festival was underway in the restaurant there, which is open to the public and even sells a zensai dessert based on Sweet Bean Paste. That day they were selling dorayaki too, which of course I ate. The mayor was there along with many people. It was fun. The sanitorium definitely seemed to be part of the community. The book and film have brought it much attention.

We visited the Hansen’s museum, and walked through the Zenshoen grounds, following a path described in the book that ends up at the charnel house where the remains of the dead are kept for those whose families refused to allow their ashes be interred in family graves. It was incredibly moving, and brought me so much closer to the story.

At Nagomi, the Zenshoen restaurant. Alison and Durian are pictured with Mi-chan, the manager, and the mayor of the city of Higashimurayama in Tokyo.

 

Deborah: So the author took you to the location of the story and answered all your questions. Your connection to him must have had an effect on your translation.

Alison: Absolutely. I literally walked right onto the set of Sweet Bean Paste and learned so much. But I also read Durian’s stage version of the story, a dramatic reading. It had details that weren’t in the novel that I felt would add to the reader’s understanding, so I asked his permission to include them.

Deborah: Any examples?

Alison: These lines of Tokue’s: “‘with this disease the eyesight gets weaker and sensation in the fingers and toes is gradually lost. But for some reason sensation in the tongue is the last to be affected. Can you imagine what it’s like for someone who can’t see or feel, to taste something sweet?’”  

Another thing was the Author’s Note. Talking with Durian taught me a lot about his reasons for writing the book, and I realized he had a philosophy on life that was integral to the story, which I wanted readers to hear too. So I asked the publisher if we could have an Author’s Note with the English version. She agreed and I translated this as well. Whenever I see it quoted on Goodreads or blogs, I feel really satisfied at having brought that about—it is such a powerful statement. For example, these lines:

“Some lives are all too brief, while others are a continual struggle. I couldn’t help thinking that it was a brutal assessment of people’s lives to employ usefulness to society as a yardstick by which to measure their value.” And these: “Anyone is capable of making a positive contribution to the world through simple observation, irrespective of circumstance.” This is the gist of the message Tokue had for Sentaro and Wakana in the book, both of whom struggled to make sense of their existences. These words really resonate with readers.

At the stone cairn at Zenshoen commemorating filming of An. Calligraphy (same as on movie flyer) by Naomi Kawase.

That aspect of the book had a great influence on me personally. My brother, who had schizophrenia, died a couple of years ago at the age of 51. I had to give his eulogy, and suspected some people might be feeling his life had been wasted because of his illness. But thanks to this story I had a means to frame my thoughts. I was able to stand up straight and say with confidence that my brother’s life had been as full and worthwhile as anybody’s.

Deborah: (searching for a tissue) Is that the end of the story?

Alison: Actually, no. Another result of my visit to Nasu was I decided to ask Durian and his guitarist, Pickles, to give the same performance in Tokai-mura, where I live. Up until the 2011 Fukushima disaster, it was the location of Japan’s worst-ever nuclear accident, which occurred in 1999. Of course Fukushima also had enormous consequences for Tokai-mura, but it’s hard to discuss them openly as most people in the town are connected to the nuclear industry. So Durian and Pickles came and gave a performance in February 2017. It was great—even the mayor came!

Poster for the February 2017 dramatic reading concert that Alison organized in Tokai-mura; Pickles Tamura, Durian, Alison and Tokai-mura’s Mayor Yamada and Deputy Mayor Hagiya at the concert.

Deborah: So you are still connected.

Alison: Yes, we met in Kamakura in early January. Durian is writing a series of animal fables and is a professor at Meiji Gakuin University these days.

Deborah: How is the book doing?

Alison: Ever since the pandemic started, Sweet Bean Paste has quietly boomed. Every single day I get alerts that somebody somewhere is reading, recommending or talking about it. Not bad for a novel published in 2017 by an independent publisher with little fanfare! Goodreads reviews have zoomed to 1500.

Deborah: I see Oneworld has it labeled “bestseller” in their pamphlet. Congratulations! What do you think is the connection with the pandemic that has drawn so many readers?

Alison: I think the experience of lockdown helped many readers identify with Tokue. Plus the struggles and uncertainty of life caused by the pandemic have set many people thinking about what makes life worthwhile. But Sweet Bean Paste doesn’t hit you over the head with heavy philosophical discussion. It’s an artfully simple, moving story that leaves the reader feeling better for having read it, and about their own place in the world, whatever that may be. I think that quality is what people appreciate the book for.

A flyer for an event featuring Durian and Masako Ueno, the former Hansen’s disease patient on whom Tokue was based. (Click to enlarge.)

Deborah: Alison, thanks so much for sharing your journey with Sweet Bean Paste. When I contacted you, I had no idea where it would lead. Are you working on any other books these days?

Alison: Yes, I’m currently translating What You Are Looking For Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama, and I have two translations coming out this year: Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda in June, and The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase in November.

Deborah: Then I guess I’ll be talking to you again soon!

To our readers: See also Alison’s bio.

Alison Watts and Deborah Iwabuchi

 

Voicing a Story

By Andrew Wong, Tokyo

We were recently treated to a double header on voice and character with two (yes two!) award winning kidlit creators, Traci Chee and Avery Fischer Udagawa. Attending both sessions, I saw how their approaches toward characterization and narrative were different by nature of their roles in the creative space—a writer shapes characters from scratch to best convey a narrative, while a translator recreates a story and the experience of reading it in another language.

A strong voice draws readers (that includes publishers too) and drives a story, and both Traci and Avery touched on how writers create voice. Using various techniques to put sentence length and vocabulary to work with non-textual cues, and sometimes with how the text falls on a page, to create tone, pace, and atmosphere, authors and translators use basically the same tools for a text-based narrative.

Voicing and Tone: – PianoBuyer.com

But unlike authors, translators work on an existing text. Even so, Avery cautioned against being too concerned about fidelity. Taking an example from music, she mentioned how the notes of an accurately tuned piano may sound fine, yet they are different from the sound that flows from a voiced piano. My take on this would be that when a pianist (translator) plays music scripted by a composer (writer), a performance focused on hitting the right notes alone would sound sterile as compared to a nuanced expressive one.

Avery used submissions from a workshop at SCBWI Japan Translation Day a few years ago to show how two translations of the same passage can sound very different. This reminded me that a translator’s reading of the original, their interpretations and choices, affect every aspect of the translation. Indeed, no two translations from workshops over the past six editions of Translation Day have given off quite the same vibes.

Having shown how translation is a highly subjective endeavor, besides reading the story in rakugo-style and asking family members for input, Avery shared how communicating with Temple Alley Summer author Sachiko Kashiwaba sometimes influences her, for example encouraging her to trim her sentences (when in doubt) to reflect Kashiwaba’s often tightly phrased emails. While Avery mentioned that Kashiwaba doesn’t write herself into her stories, this experience suggests how personal connections between the writer and translator are simply precious and can sometimes prove instrumental in fine tuning the voice, narrative or otherwise.

We had already dipped into the depths of characterization and voice in the preceding workshop with Traci Chee, and together the two sessions made me think deeper about the tools available to (re)create characters and the story world, and about the clues lying there in the pages waiting to be discovered and conveyed. For more on Traci Chee’s illuminating workshop on voice in her book, We Are Not Free, watch for Mari Boyle’s write-up at the SCBWI Japan blog.

Participants in the Voice and Character event (photo taken after Avery’s session)

How Do You Live? An Interview with Translator Bruno Navasky

By Deborah Iwabuchi, Maebashi, Japan

Bruno Navasky is the translator of How Do You Live? by Genzaburō Yoshino, a book known for (among other things) being “the first English translation of Hayao Miyazaki’s favorite children’s book.” Bruno kindly agreed to do an interview for this blog.

Deborah Iwabuchi: Hi, Bruno! On your website, you introduce yourself as “a teacher and writer in New York City.” Could you add a little to this, especially in terms of translation?

Bruno Navasky: Hi Deborah! Thanks very much for including me on your blog.

Translation has always been for me less a vocation than a constant avocation. I first encountered Japanese through a childhood friendship with the conductor Alan Gilbert. The two of us studied French and Latin together as kids, and his family took me on my first trip to Japan, where we traveled with his Japanese cousins during their summer vacation. It was an unforgettable tour, from the onsen at Hakone up to the thatched rooftops of Takayama and down to the gardens and temples of Kyoto and Nara. As we traveled, I picked up random phrases of Japanese, and I remember being struck by the many ways in which it reminded me of the Latin works I was reading at the time (SOV word order, for instance, and regular conjugations that create a surfeit of end-rhymes, and thus a tendency to syllabic verse). I was just at the close of that period when language acquisition happens with minimal effort, and I came away with a budding appreciation of Japanese culture and an abiding love for the language.

Bruno Navasky

In college I studied Japanese language and literature, and I was fortunate to study with Prof. Edwin A. Cranston, the author of A Waka Anthology. My thesis project was a book-length translation and essay on the work of Tanikawa Shuntarō, a beloved poet who emerged from the wasteland of World War II to write life-affirming poems, playful and soulful, for readers of all ages. (For many years, he also translated Charles Schultz’s comic strip Peanuts for publication in Japanese newspapers.)

After college I attended the University of Nagoya as a research fellow of the Japanese Ministry of Education. I found myself again drawn to contemporaries of my college thesis subject, the poet Tanikawa. I loved the crushingly precise portraits of parenthood and childhood in the work of Kuroda Saburō, among others, and the richly allusive, surreal and musical poems of Naka Tarō.

Deborah: Let’s talk a little about How Do You Live? It was first published in Japanese in 1937 as Kimitachi wa dō ikiru ka and was then revised after World War II to make it easier to read. It was produced as a manga in 2017, which brings us to your English translation that came out this year by Algonquin Books. Interest in this translation is being propelled by the fact that Hayao Miyazaki, the Studio Ghibli creator, read and loved the book as a child and is making it into an animated film.

Could you give blog readers an idea of what the book is about?

Bruno: I think at heart for those who love it, How Do You Live? is the story of a boy and his uncle. The boy is learning how to be himself in a challenging world, and the uncle is trying to help him find his way. The boy lives with his mother, in a Tokyo suburb of the 1930s. He has a close group of school friends and together they sail through a series of adventures and misadventures that finally carry him to the stormy seas of a great personal crisis. Or at least, so it seems to him. Throughout the book, both his friends and the adults in his life have important lessons to offer him, particularly his uncle, and those lessons form the framework for what might be considered an ethical treatise by the author Yoshino Genzaburō.

Japanese edition of How Do You Live?

Yoshino himself had been imprisoned for his progressive political associations, and hoped to craft a defense of pacifism, of independent thought, and of the humanities in the face of the rampant militarism, authoritarianism, and censorship of the period. He initially intended the book to be a textbook, one in a series he was editing with a colleague (Nihon shōkokumin bunko, with Yamamoto Yūzō), but partially because of the heavy subject matter, and partially because of the political climate, they decided it would work better as a story. When Yamamoto developed eye problems, it fell to Yoshino to write the book himself.

So in a sense, the book exists on three planes simultaneously: as a work of fiction, as a primer, and as a political broadside. The format that Yoshino hit upon to accomplish this was to interleave narrative chapters about the boy’s experience together with notes that the uncle writes in his own journal. This has the benefit of softening the edge of the didactic material, and allows Yoshino’s own voice to poke through into the story. As an educator, I was impressed with the way the narrative and didactic sections use scaffolding to reinforce concepts after they are introduced — a challenging word or concept is never tossed aside casually in this book, but rather resurfaces and is reinforced in multiple occurrences. And as a reader, as well, I think the book might have been no more than the sum of its parts if the two threads of the book, the narrative and the didactic, had not been knit together, at long last, very neatly in the final chapters, where the book really begins to pull its weight as a novel.

Deborah: I agree with this. The ending is incredibly moving. Each of the episodes in the boy Copper’s life is pulled together, and the lengthy pieces of advice by his uncle move from broad to very specific. This is where we the readers, together with Copper, are grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged out of our rather peaceful existences, with Yoshino demanding to know, “How are you planning to live your life?”

Manga version by Shoichi Haga

I confess that the Miyazaki connection is what grabbed my interest at first. Written in the late 1930s, I imagined this book would have a critique of Japan’s militaristic road to war as its theme, something Miyazaki has used in a number of his films. Outside of the story of Napoleon, though, How Do You Live? actually doesn’t have much about war, though war could be the elephant in the room—we can smell it and hear it stomping around without actually seeing it. I greatly appreciate your historical notes at the end of the book; they answer the questions I had as I read.

Bruno: Aside from a brief period when the censors caught up with the book, it has remained in print for nearly all of the eighty-odd years since its publication. Although Japan’s circumstances have changed, and the original text may seem dated in certain respects, the book remains a luminous portrait of Tokyo at a time when Japan was on the brink of profound social changes, a moral beacon that influenced the values of a generation and, I think, a moving story to boot. With the release of the manga version and the forthcoming film by Miyazaki, it’s again selling briskly, and catching the eye of publishers around the world.

In addition to its interest as a historical and literary document, I think the book is of particular interest in countries that are grappling with authoritarianism right now. Since the English edition has been released I have had inquiries from Turkish, Russian, and Brazilian translators. I don’t exempt the United States from this, but I also think the book is of great value to the global generation that is coming of age in a time of so much uncertainty — political and economic changes, new technologies, covid, global warming, and so on — and wondering how to live their lives in the face of it all.

Deborah: How did you get involved with it and what your experience was like?

Bruno: The American publisher, Algonquin Books, acquired the English language rights to the book after news of the manga and the Miyazaki film caught the eye of Elise Howard, an astute editor and publisher of their Young Readers books. Algonquin knew of my translation work through a previous project with a related publisher, and a contact there suggested me for Yoshino’s book, but I did have to audition for the project. I submitted an initial sample for Algonquin and then an extended sample for the Yoshino estate, which was taking great care to safeguard the integrity of the original text, and had secured certain approval rights. So my agreement with Algonquin was conditional upon approval by the estate, and I had to put in a fair amount of work in advance of the contract.

I had heard of the book, but I had never read it. As I got to know it better, I felt very lucky to have been given the opportunity to do this translation. It ticked all the boxes for me — period and genre, but it was also a work intended for readers of all ages, so it appealed to me as an educator; and in the midst of the very authoritarian Trump administration in the United States, it seemed like it might carry an essential message of resistance to brute authority and bullying. On top of all that, I have a beloved uncle, and seven young nephews who are already starting to feel the weight of the social and environmental burden we have bequeathed to them, so I could really feel the book. And finally, my father-in-law grew up in Japan during and after the war, so I felt a special appreciation for the portrait the book painted of life at that time.

"To part with such good friends over something like this is a painful state of affairs." https://t.co/nxI0V2fqQO

— Main St. Books Monroe @mainstbooksmonroe (@main_st_books) January 25, 2022

Deborah: When I started reading, I felt like it was a book that could have been written eighty-five years ago. It took me back to what I was reading as a child in the 60s, which was books from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Looking back, there was a particular kind of wording that describes and savors every detail of the setting, the characters and the action. It worked to get me inside a story and keep me there, wishing I really was there. As a translator, though, I’m not sure I could have kept up so faithfully with all of those words, although I think it was absolutely the way it needed to be interpreted. Can you talk a little bit about how you adopted a style that reflected the age in which it was written?

Bruno: I was fortunate that Yoshino was so good at setting the scene: his portraits of Tokyo’s neighborhoods and street culture are so deftly detailed that I didn’t need to nail down the language to a specific decade or even a particular genre convention. I wanted to create an impression that the book came from long ago, but not too long ago. My touchstones in English were in large measure drawn from the so-called “Golden Age” of children’s literature, British authors such as E. Nesbit, Lewis Carrol, and Edwin Abbott. These were writers who were all, in one sense or another, border crossers: they moved fluidly between the real world and the world of the imagination, they easily balanced formal and informal language, and perhaps most important, they wrote for both children and adults, bringing their concerns about art, politics, philosophy, science, and even mathematics into their storytelling.

Of course, the gradations between formal and informal language are far less explicit in English than they are in Japanese, so to a certain extent I flew by the seat of my pants, moving between language of greater and lesser intimacy, and greater or lesser levels of narrative distance to try to recreate Yoshino’s gentle humor and slightly archaic tone in English. Similarly with the shifts between simple narrative and the quite technical economic, philosophical, and scientific descriptions in the uncle’s interleaved notes. Which is not to say I didn’t agonize over specifics here and there. Throughout the work I was helped by my editor at Algonquin, who maintained a clear vision that the English version needed to be coherent for younger readers, without sacrificing the unique and idiosyncratic format and style of the original.

I had such a great time doing the research for this translation, partly because of the period in which it was set and partly because of the eclectic subject matter. Ordinarily, I’d be inclined to do a first reading of the book “cold,” just to get to know it directly before touching any biographical or critical material, but because my publisher wanted some background on the author and publishing history of the book, I began with that, and then dug into the text. With poetry I’m ready to let the Japanese have its way with the English more often than not, and my first drafts are usually in very fragmented, fractured English, as close to the Japanese vocabulary and word order as I can come, because I’m more worried about getting locked into conventional English phrasing, not at all concerned about “breaking” the English, and want the draft to point back at the original as much as possible as I get to know it better. But in this case, I was very focused on the overall tone in English, and the specific voices of characters, so from the first draft I was looking for my English phrasing, and to keep the work in sync with the original I just kept really extensive notes.

Genzaburō Yoshino (used with permission from Algonquin Young Readers)

Deborah: The suggested ages for readers of How Do You Live? is ten to fourteen years. I imagine fourteen-year-old readers can digest most books, but some of the wide-ranging advice Copper’s uncle gives him was a little beyond me, although when I stuck with it, there was quite a lot to learn.

Bruno: I can’t disagree with you about that, and Yoshino himself says as much in his foreword to the book. There were also moments when I couldn’t help being irritated with this schoolbook of an uncle, and his sections reminded me at times of the proletarian literature in the years immediately preceding Yoshino, but his sincerity always won me over in the end, as did the uncle’s love for his nephew — and I do think the lessons were brilliantly selected to educate both in their eclectic fields and simultaneously as cogs in the powerful ethical argument Yoshino was building. I love the way the many disparate parts of this book seem to be in a bit of a tug of war, but then are knit together in the end. Ultimately, I think that this book may not be an ideal book for every reader (as if there were such a thing!), but it is an absolutely essential book for some special readers — those who are able to see its magic.

Deborah: I agree with you about the magic, but reading all the way to the end is the best way to find it. I do hope that readers of all ages will pick it up, and find out why Hayao Miyazaki loved it so much. I want to thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experience with us. Take care and we hope to see you in Japan someday.

An expanded version of this interview is available at FULL STOP: Reviews. Interviews. Marginalia.

Read more about the book on the World Kid Lit Blog.

Talking about Temple Alley Summer

By Deborah Iwabuchi, Maebashi, Japan

Avery Fischer Udagawa is the translator of a middle grade novel just out from Yonder, an imprint of Restless Books. Temple Alley Summer was written by Sachiko Kashiwaba, a well-known author in Japan. Her book The Mysterious Village Veiled in Mist influenced the Studio Ghibli movie Spirited Away.

Today, I’m talking with Avery about her work on Temple Alley Summer (TAS). In the past months, I’ve had the opportunity to do a few of these interviews. Each one brings new discoveries, and I’m enjoying it so much that I’m about ready to give up doing translation altogether and just READ translated books so I can talk to the translators about them.

TAS was thoroughly engrossing, and I sailed through the 200-plus pages. There’s no way a brief synopsis without spoilers can do it justice, but let me give it a try. What begins as a story about modern Japanese schoolchildren moves quickly into an old neighborhood legend and a mysterious statuette that can bring people back from the dead. Fifth-grade Kazu witnesses such an event and becomes privy to the truth behind Akari, a girl who suddenly appears in his class. If Akari’s story were not enough, Kazu and Akari end up in pursuit of another, older and darker fantasy, an unfinished story in a magazine that Akari read in her first life, and which Kazu is determined to find the conclusion to. The reader gets to read the story along with Kazu, and is left hanging as he searches for its author. This story within a story keeps the reader glued to the page until the very end. What happens to Akari? And what about Adi in the other story? Rest assured, all the puzzles are solved, but that’s all you’re going to get from me!

Sachiko Kashiwaba, author of Temple Alley Summer

Deborah: Avery, you were interviewed a year ago about another story by Sachiko Kashiwaba that you translated, “Firstclaw,” online at Words Without Borders. In the interview, you also talked about your impressions of TAS, so I encourage blog readers to visit that posting too.

You describe TAS as “a middle grade novel that showcases Kashiwaba’s gift for writing fairy tales, Japan-inspired fantasy, and contemporary realism, all in 52,000 engrossing words.” Can you tell me how you came to meet Kashiwaba and translate this book?

Avery: I met Sachiko Kashiwaba through translating another of her works for Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction: An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories. The opportunity to translate for Tomo and the introduction to Kashiwaba both grew out of involvement in SCBWI Japan (then called SCBWI Tokyo) and its network, and the impetus to translate TAS came from a competition connected with the Asian Festival of Children’s Content 2016. I asked the author’s permission to submit a translation of TAS to the competition and then, later, to English-language publishers.

Avery Fischer Udagawa, translator of Temple Alley Summer

Deborah: I’d like to look at the different layers of the story. The story begins with Kazu, his family, and a day at his typical Japanese school. I imagine the author wanting to bring her Japanese readers in close with a familiar setting before leading them into the supernatural. I find it difficult to translate beginnings of books that involve Japanese school life. To me, it’s always the most difficult part of a translation. The aspects of Japanese society familiar to people living here are the parts that I as a translator have difficulty explaining for non-Japan-based readers in a way that doesn’t get in the way of the original.

In this case, too, there was a certain amount of school and household terminology to get through to discover the old town map with the name Kimyō Temple—an essential plot element. After that, the story takes off. The cast of characters from Kimyō Temple Alley and the somewhat eccentric former resident, together with Kashiwaba’s fantasy, are all described—and of course translated—thoroughly and engagingly. Every time I thought I had the plot figured out, it took a step in a different direction. Any comments on parts of the translation you found more challenging, and parts that were more fun to do?

Avery: Thank you for your kind words about the translation! The opening was indeed a challenge, due to the setting’s many Japan-specific features. Young readers of English cannot be expected to know that class sections in every grade at Japanese school are numbered, or that these sections routinely subdivide into numbered small groups, or that students will remove their street shoes at school and wear indoor shoes, which they may take home during vacations. The early chapters contain many references to such details, which I needed to try to include without stopping the story to explain. It comforts me that you, too, have struggled with this! I would love to see enough Japan school stories become known in English that a bit of background knowledge can be assumed.

Another challenge, which actually arose after translating, has been conveying that religious practices and objects play a role in TAS yet do not make the story religious—just as religious activities are part of life for many people in Japan who are otherwise secular. Everyone in a community might turn up for a festival at a temple to the bodhisattva Kannon, yet not venerate Kannon otherwise. A small statuette of the Buddha might be experienced as simply a household object. A family altar, more than being a site of worship, might imply something closer to missing departed relatives.

Explaining the role of religion in Japan is hard even for scholars and for Japanese themselves. I have tried to convey that TAS unfolds in a culture that has many religious influences, which nonetheless is often nonreligious. And TAS is not a religious novel, any more than The Letter for the King and The Secrets of the Wild Wood by Tonke Dragt, translated by Laura Watkinson, are religious due to including a chapel, a monastery, a knight saying a prayer, and so on.

Deborah: This is an excellent point. As someone who has been in Japan for decades, I tend to forget about the flexibility of Japanese society when it comes to religion and how unusual it can seem.

Avery: As for especially fun parts of TAS to translate, I relished working with dialogue and narrative voice to bring out the relationships between characters. The love/hate connection between fifth-grade Kazu and his 83-year-old neighbor Ms. Minakami was fascinating to translate, because rough equivalents of their words rarely served anything like the same function in English. For example, in a spot where Kazu harps on Ms. Minakami to do something, she says urusai! to him. I could hardly render this literally as “(You’re) noisy!” because the issue is Kazu’s nagging, not his loudness. Nor could I express urusai! with the commonly used but overly blunt “Shut up!” I needed to fashion some English that preserved the level of respect a child and an elder in the same tight-knit neighborhood would show to each other, even when fighting mad. And they really do get fighting mad!

Deborah: So how did it work out in the end? What did they say to each other in English?

Avery: “Kazu. You’re driving me crazy,” she said on the phone. (かずくん、うるさい！)

“Crazy is as crazy does…” [Kazu] replied. （自業自得ってやつです。）

Deborah: Well done! Both the difficult-to-translate urusai (drive me crazy) and jigō-jitoku (crazy is as crazy does) with one fell swoop.

Avery: The embedded tale within TAS, “The Moon Is On the Left,” also offered many interesting passages to translate, including a dramatic scene with rockfalls, flames, volleys of arrows, and lightning bolts indoors! My daily life doesn’t afford many chances to say rockfalls.

Deborah: One thing I liked about TAS was the fact that it WASN’T written in five volumes—when it very well could have been. On the other hand, there are a few aspects that I’m left wondering about and that I wouldn’t mind visiting in a sequel. What happened to the Kimyō Temple statuette? Did Akari’s first-life mother ever find out she came back to life? Are there any aspects you wanted to know more about, and has Kashiwaba written any other books to follow?

Deborah Iwabuchi and Avery Fischer Udagawa

Avery: Sachiko Kashiwaba has not published a sequel to TAS; I, like you, would certainly love to read more, especially about Akari’s former mother Ms. Ando. At the same time, I appreciate that certain things remain a mystery, and I too like that the book stands alone.

Kashiwaba has gone on to publish a number of other works, including the young adult/adult novel Misaki no mayoiga (The Abandoned House by the Cape), which takes place during and after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. This book has recently been made into a play, and it is also the basis of an anime movie to be released in Japan in August 2021.

Kashiwaba’s other recent works include several fantasy novels, an adaptation of the beloved Tōno monogatari folk legends, and volumes in her long-running Monster Hotel series—rollicking early readers that bring together yokai and western-style monsters.

People interested in her earlier works can check out the film Spirited Away, influenced by her debut novel The Marvelous Village Veiled in Mist; and the film The Wonderland, based on another early book. We also have a blog post here at Ihatov with excerpts from a workshop that drew on her 2010 novel Tsuzuki no toshokan (The “What’s-Next” Library).

Deborah: The titles alone are fascinating! Thanks for sharing this book and your experiences with it, Avery. I hope we’ll be seeing more of Kashiwaba in translation before too long. Meanwhile, I’m heading out to look for rockfalls.

Creative Exchange Featuring Translators!

By Deborah Iwabuchi, Maebashi, Japan

SCBWI Japan had a Creative Exchange on Friday, May 14, 2021. Below is a picture of all the participants. It was exciting to see the diversity of (fascinating and brilliant!) ongoing projects. Along with English books, we had several works by non-Japanese being written in Japanese. One book was entirely illustrations—suitable for universal readership.

Pertinent to this blog, three projects were Japanese-to-English translations being pursued on spec. Let’s take a look at them.

Amy Lange Kawamura is translating Kaeru Fukushima by Yasushi Yanai, published by Poplar, for the SCBWI translation contest. This nonfiction children’s story is about frogs endangered due to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, as well as about the people who left the prefecture and have yet to return. Amy asked the group for ideas on the book’s English title. The word kaeru in Japanese can mean both “frog” and “go home,” and frogs are typically used in Japanese messages about—going home. The question for this title was which nuances should be retained to draw interest to the book.

Avery Udagawa is translating portions of DIVE!! by Eto Mori, published by Kadokawa Shoten. The YA novel is about a struggling diving club whose future hangs on whether or not it can produce Olympic contenders. The story begins with the arrival of a new female coach. Much to the dismay of her teenage charges, she starts off by rejecting the athletes’ forms and not even letting them in the water. Avery’s concern was the format of her excerpt. Japanese books often have very short paragraphs, and Dive!! ends one chapter with a string of them only a line long each. She also asked the group for comments on her interpretations of teenage conversations.

Holly Thompson’s latest translation is Chibi ryū (Tiny Dragon) by Naoko Kudo, published by Doshinsha. Here’s Holly’s description of the work: “A lyrical story of a newborn water dragon that befriends, questions and learns from all sorts of living beings until large enough to cradle and love the world.” The narrative’s opening is accompanied and encouraged by a choir of mosquitoes chanting ara yoi yoi! and hoi sassa! Holly wanted to know how the group felt about leaving the untranslatable chanting in the original language and what it might add to the story.

A GLLI Video Interview with Cathy Hirano

By Andrew Wong, Tokyo

The global pandemic has forced events online and deprived excellent books of much needed opportunities for promotion. So when the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative announced the winners of its 2021 Translated YA Book Prize and gave 2020 co-winner Cathy Hirano the chance to talk about her translations of The Beast Player and The Beast Warrior, I tuned in to watch her interview (accessible from here) with David Jacobson, introduced by Annette Goldsmith.

Cathy drew on her long career to share her insights into literary translation. For her work with Nahoko Uehashi, she related how Uehashi herself commissioned the entire translation of a Moribito title instead of just a sample, which demonstrated her understanding that the power of that story could only be seen when presented in its entirety. Talking at length about their work together, Cathy also appreciated how Uehashi is flexible, tweaking her work for dramatization and other adaptations, and often engaging deeply to help others convey her work. Cathy would probably be quick to concur that her excellent translations are in part down to what I perceived to be her deeply satisfying collaborative relationship with Uehashi, which in turn contributed to Uehashi clinching the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing.

The conversation also touched on adding information to build cultural bridges—or not—for example, by leaving foreign words as-is, like Toda for the lizards bred for battle, while choosing Royal Beast over Ōjū, which didn’t sound quite so magnificent in English. That Uehashi’s fantasy worlds had to be shaped by the original text meant less bridging work than stories set in specific periods in history.

US editions of The Beast Player and The Beast Warrior (Holt), illustrated by Yuta Onoda

Turning to the themes in the Beast titles, Cathy notes that while Uehashi draws on her background in cultural anthropology to weave complex multicultural relationships in a fantasy world, just as she did for the Moribito series, romance only appears in fleeting episodes. The momentum stays very much in the tussles with power and with the fear and control of the unfamiliar other. While I was particularly drawn to Elin’s development under the guidance of her mentors Joeun and Esalu in The Beast Player, it was intriguing to hear both David and Cathy note the parallel in the political relationships between the symbolic ruler Yojeh and her protectors, and that of Japan and the US in the real world, although Uehashi was leaning more towards an exploration of the situation internally in Japan. Perhaps my reading as a Singaporean was partly what made me simply join Elin and her young family in their flight in the second title, struggling together with them to find the light in a dense tangle of relationships. Then, Elin’s bond with Leelan, a Royal Beast she had cared for since nursing her back to health as a cub, steeled her to do what she had to in the final maelstrom.

As the interview drew to a close, Cathy made the translator in me smile when she said she found great satisfaction from knowing her work helped someone else experience a book the same way she did. By taking the time to highlight this second fascinating epic from the collaborative duo of Nahoko Uehashi and Cathy Hirano, GLLI too has opened more doors to worlds of the other, and extended an invitation to the conversation on translated works for children and young adults.