Stranger Translations

A collection of writings on translation.

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The Translation

The Translation:   Chapter  XXI        Kretschmar  for some time grew silent.  An unparalleled longing 1  was pres suring him.  Perhaps, f or the first time   during the year of cohabitation 2  with Magda, he was clearly recognizing that thin layer of filth 3  which sett led upon his life.    H is fate ,   n ow 4   with a blinding clarity , 5  pushed him  into an awakening recollection:  he heard a sundering call to fate and understood, that he is given a rare opportunity to sharply pull his life b a ck into its former height 6 .   He was coming to an  understanding ,  that  if now he will return to his wife and will be silently and inseparably by her side, then a reconnection, impossible under any other routine circumstance, will happen almost by  itself .     Some memories about that night wouldn’t  leave him in peace:  he was recol...
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The Shining World

Part I. The Overturned Arena.   I, II, III, IV ….       V     The last act, that was to be followed by “The Double Star,” was called “The Failure of Fetters.” It presented a short and stout, deep-chested man, who was bound hand and foot with arm-thick ropes and hoppled with wire; to crown it all  ( on top of it all), shackles begirded his wrists and ankles. He was then hidden under a sheet; he fidgeted under it for a minute or two and rose completely free; the fetters were lying about in the sand. He left. Deep, poignant silence broke down. The music started and stopped. The circus was breathing inaudibly. Infectious anticipation travelled from heart to heart, stringing up all senses; the stares were piercing the curtain, silently   calling out the promised apparition. Musicians were leafing through their notes. Five minutes  have passed ; the tension was growing. The tops, having rattled higgledy-piggledy, burst into a salvo of remonstrating...
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Bubbles

Translating Yoshimoto Banana and the  Shōjo  Girl   Yoshimoto Banana (b. 1964) by now is one of the most well-known Japanese writers in the English reading world, and enormously famous in Japan. In particular, she is popular among young women, who  perhaps identify  with Yoshimoto’s female protagonists. Her most popular works were published during the “Bubble” economy, including  Bubbles . Her translations introduced a new side of Japan to English readers that had nothing to do with the “orient,” no traces of the masculine texts that had been published in the postwar period by celebrated writers Mishima Yukio,  Ōe   Kenzaburō , or Kawabata Yasunari. From another perspective, Yoshimoto’s work lies outside the realm of so-called “pure” literature ( jun   bungaku )   and has been categorized as “popular” literature ( taishû   bungaku ). She is an icon of girls’ literature, or  shōjo   bungaku , a rich, cross-media genre in Ja...
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