Kurodahan Press

Mouse or Hamster?

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:29:11 +0900

After literally decades of translating, and thinking (as customers and other obligations permitted) about why this translation was better than that, reading on the subject, and slowly developing my own criteria for what constitutes an acceptable translation and what does not, last week I finally received a copy of Umberto Eco's Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. It has been on my list of books to read for quite some time, but for reasons not terribly relevant sat moldering in the United States for several years until finally making its way to me.

Having read it, I am simultaneously in ecstasy and despair.

A Sense of Wonder

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:07:33 +0900

I happened to be "talking" with another friend in the translation business the other day (I say "talking" because we were actually emailing each other as time permitted, so a "conversation" might take half a day...), and we mentioned the words awe and wonder.

Tigers and Cheerios

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:27:53 +0900

Translation is all about getting the idea across in another language, but it's not as simple as picking one word from column A and one to match it from column B. Many words are just packed full of cultural goodies that make it difficult to translate them smoothly. And especially if you're trapped in a situation like literature, where you can't get away with footnotes, or (even worse) in movie subtitles where you have only a few lines and five seconds to read them, you have to make some tough choices.

Harvest Moons and Rabbits

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:34:28 +0900

The right word can make such a difference in writing. Or in translation, of course. There's rather a big difference between "Four score and seven years ago" and "Eighty-seven years ago," isn't there? True, "score" was no doubt more commonly used then than it is now, but when we read that today we get quite a bit of peripheral baggage along with the number of years. The word "score" is relatively unused in this sense in modern English and imparts a heavier, more formal tone, as does the fact that the number is given as a "quantity and quantity" rather than the more prosaic "eighty-seven."

Tracking Yoshitoshi

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:52:46 +0900

Well, that's one more thing I can cross of my list of things that have to be done right now: the cover art for the kaiki anthology series is finally settled, and well on its way toward completion. It took quite a while to get here, and I thought you might find it interesting. Solving problems like this is always interesting, true, but usually far more enjoyable after solving them than while you're trying to figure out what to do next...

Credit Where It's Due

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:55:49 +0900

Does anyone really know or care what the original language of a work was? There are actually quite a number of works translated from other languages into English, and in many cases (especially in the US) it doesn't actually say anywhere whether it was translated or not. The translator's name may be listed once inside, in small print, or not at all.
As someone who has made a living out of translation for over 25 years, this is rather distressing, to say the least...

Hearts and Hearths

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:24:56 +0900

Saturday I met with Tatsumi Takayuki, an old friend from Honyaku Benkyokai days in Tokyo and author of Full Metal Apache. We actually met to talk about the articles being written for the upcoming Rampo Reader, but talked about quite a number of things on the way: the possible content of Speculative Japan volume 2, a number of novels that should be considered for publication in the future, upcoming Poe Conferences in Japan and the US, important new books in the field by Sari Kawana and Mark Silver, and more. And then we touched on the deliberate mangling of Japanese works by translators.

Language Learning for Translators

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:53:02 +0900

When I was quite a bit younger, I didn't speak much of anything... I concentrated on the really important things in life like milk and diapers and chewing on my toes. But it didn't take me long to figure out that various noises could be really important, like warning me I was about to be picked up and have a bottle stuffed in my mouth.
Eventually I figured out that I could make similar noises, and it's been pretty busy since.

Zenna Henderson's "People", Japanese Style

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:22 +0900

Having fallen behind on my reading, I had a chance this weekend to do some catching up... quite a stack to choose from, and instead of picking up one of those books just itching to be read, I happened to notice my copy of 光の帝国ー常野物語 (Hikari no Teikoku – Tokono Monogatari) by Onda Riku (恩田陸) jumping up and down, demanding to be read for at least the third time. Wimp that I am, I fell for it.

Thousand-Handed Kannon, Argus and Clones

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:35:07 +0900

Sometimes I wish I could clone myself. There is simply so much to do and not enough time to get it done in. And that's just the things I really must do, not even including all the things I merely want to do. Work can really be all-consuming if you let it, and especially when you happen to enjoy the work you do.

Crystal Silence

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:43:39 +0900

Buy this book...

Crystal Silence

By FUJISAKI Shingo (藤崎慎吾)

Translated by Kathleen TAJI

It is 2071, and Mars is being slowly terraformed by many nations often cooperating in an uneasy truce that reflects tensions back on Earth. The water of the polar ice cap, the most important resource for all the Mars colonies, is jointly controlled by the US, China, Japan and Russia, and doled out to the second-tier colonizing groups (Europe, Canada, Australia, India) only grudgingly. A military build-up is under way as different groups jockey for control of this all-important resource, and then the bodies of what appear to be intellligent aliens are found under the Martian ice.

A Rose by Any Other Name

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:06:22 +0900

Last week I flew up to Tokyo to meet with Fujisaki Shingo, to sign the contract for Crystal Silence. I read the book quite some time ago, as it was published in 1999 and was chosen as Best SF Novel of 1999 in the annual Hayakawa SF Magazine poll, but didn't have a chance to actually start talking to the author about possible publication until earlier this year.

Crystal Silence by Fujisaki Shingo in translation

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:48:41 +0900

We have just signed an agreement with Fujisaki Shingo (藤崎慎吾) to translate his award-winning science fiction novel Crystal Silence (クリスタルサイレンス).

Originally published in 1999, Crystal Silence was promptly voted the best Japanese SF novel of the year in the annual poll run by Hayakawa SF Magazine. < More >

Meanwhile, Elsewhere in East Asia...

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:44:52 +0900

Story evaluation and discussions are still under way for the second volume of our Speculative Japan series of science fiction in translation, but a number of things happened coincidentally and simultaneously to vastly accelerate our plans for a similar series of Chinese science fiction in English. It's still hard to tell, but it now looks quite possible that the first Chinese collection could come out before the second volume of Japanese stories!

Translation Practice

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:44:11 +0900

September has come... this should be the middle of the typhoon season here, but the unusual weather worldwide seems to have come to Japan as well. It's unseasonally cool right now, and only a few scattered typhoons roaming around down south. The hotter seas down there will no doubt produce a whole series of whoppers for us later in the year. I can hardly wait.