2020: The Year in Translation from Japanese (updated)
A round-up of reviews of works in translation from Japanese, including fiction and non-fiction, novels, story collections and children’s books.
Closing the Door on 2020: The Year in Translation from Chinese
A round-up of reviews of works in translation from Chinese, including fiction, story collections, poetry and biographies.
2020: The Year in Translation from Korean
A round-up of reviews of fiction in translation from Korean, including two graphic novels, short stories and a rare novel from North Korea.
“Mebet” by Alexander Grigorenko
Works of literature that feature the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian taiga are extremely rare; the only ones that immediately come to mind are The Last Quarter of the Moon by Chi Zijian, about Evenki along the Heilongjiang-Russian border, and the (true) story of Dersu Uzala, a Nanai introduced to the world in Vladimir K…
New Book Announcement: “Green Mountain”, poetry by Yang Jian, translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Green Mountain compiles a representative selection of lyrical poems by contemporary Chinese poet and painter Yang Jian, also a Buddhist, in Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s elegant translation.
“This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar’s Tale: Two Anti-Novels” by Subimal Misra
In translating Subimal Misra’s Two Anti-Novels, V Ramaswamy brings to English readers a radical Bengali author from India. The two anti-novels are This Could Have Been Ramayan Chamar’s Tale and Where Colour is a Warning Sign. These are jarring, even disturbing, compilations of snapshots of reality. There is neither plot nor character in the conventional…
New Book Announcement: “Karma”, poetry by Yin Lichuan, translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Karma is Chinese contemporary poet Yin Lichuan’s collection of poems (bilingual edition) in Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s translation, accompanied by Sze-Lorrain’s introduction.
“The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain”
“I’d kill a Chinaman as quick as I would an Indian and I’d kill an Indian as quick as I would a dog.” This chilling remark, recorded in a police report, was made in 1884 by a man who had taken part in the lynching of Louie Sam, a fourteen-year old indigenous boy from the…
“Sachiko” by Endō Shūsaku
Endō Shūsaku has the rare distinction of having one of his novels, Silence, adapted for the silver screen by none other than Martin Scorsese. Those who aren’t familiar with his opus may be surprised to find that Endō wrote from the perspective of a Roman Catholic. Sachiko, originally published in 1982 and only just now…
“There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job” by Tsumura Kikuko
The unnamed narrator in Tsumura Kikuko’s There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job quits a job she loves after developing “burnout syndrome”. Her first career (the reader won’t find out what it was until the novel’s final pages) has sucked up “every scrap of energy” she had. She asks a recruiter to find her…
“Grass” by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
Some years back, graphic novelist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim interviewed an elderly Korean woman named Lee Ok-sun. Gendry-Kim hoped to learn about social class and gender disparity during World War II and write a book about this subject. But after several interviews, Gendry-Kim realized Lee’s personal story warranted a book of its own. The result is…
“How Human Is Human? The View from Robotics Research” by Ishiguro Hiroshi
This curious little book by Japanese technologist Ishiguro Hiroshi, now available in a very readable English translation by Tony Gonzalez, nominally discusses what robotics research teaches us about what it means to be human. But one can’t help but be left with the impression that what it really shows is just how different Japan can…
“Tales of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians”, edited by John Colarusso and Tamirlan Salbiev
The whimsicality and enchantment of this collection of Ossetian folk tales could best be captured in the seductive melodies of Rimsky-Korsakoff’s fairy tale operas and the evocative stagings of Leon Bakst or Ivan Bilibin. The Tales of the Narts go back deep into the well of time, to the age when the Scythians pastured their…
“People from My Neighborhood” by Kawakami Hiromi
People from My Neighborhood is a book about relationships. Kawakami Hiromi’s collection of micro-fiction, itself only 120-pages long, is about the members of the close-knit community in an exurban Tokyo town. For a volume of short stories, the relationships between characters are remarkably strong. Two and three pages at a time, the reader begins to…
“Kiki’s Delivery Service” by Kadono Eiko
Kiki, a thirteen-year-old witch in training, leaves her rural village for a bustling seaside town. With her, she takes only a bento lunchbox, a radio, and her black cat Jiji. She travels by broom, of course. Broom flight is the only magic Kiki has.
