KJ #73 IN TRANSLATION

A Swarm of Japanese Flies –– Aurelio Asiain
Given the importance of silence in traditional Japanese culture and the attention paid to the voices of insects, I am hardly surprised that in modern Japanese the word urusai—– noisy, annoying, bothersome”– is written with three characters whose literal meaning is “mayfly.

The Persian Psalms of Iqbal – Trans. by Rasoul Sorkhabi
Iqbal lived the rest of his life mostly in Lahore, where he practiced law and taught at the Government College from which he himself had graduated. He widely read the works of Nietzsche, Henri Bergson and Goethe, but embraced Rumi, the Sufi poet, as his spiritual and intellectual guide. Rumi’s influence is easily seen in Iqbal’s poetry both in Urdu and Persian.

A Tale of the Evening Sea, by Awa Naoko, Trans. by Toshiya Kamei
Once in a small seaside village, there was a girl who was skilled at needlework. Her name was Sae, but no one knew where she came from nor how old she was. One summer evening, many years ago, as the setting sun sparkled upon the sea as if golden-scaled fish were swarming, the girl came to the house of an old woman named Ito...

KJ #72 IN TRANSLATION
Rainbow over Hell
Mori Tsuneyuki
How then did individual Japanese negotiate the mental terrain that led from glorious self-sacrifice to participating in the future? Mohri Tsuneyuki describes the pivotal moment in Arakaki’s psychological transformation below. The radical disjuncture that he experienced helps explain why so many Japanese think of 1945 as a fundamental turning point for their society yet find it hard to express the precise nature of that change of heart.

KJ #71 IN TRANSLATION
The Wrong Paradise – Rabindranath Tagore (trans. Srinjay Chakravarti),
artwork by Amane Kaneko

There are some schoolboys who don’t study the whole year, but somehow manage to pass their final exams. Something of this sort happened to him.
He wasted his entire youth doing nothing useful, but when he died, he learnt that he had been allowed to go to heaven.
But his haplessness didn’t leave him alone even on his way to paradise. The empyreal messengers made a mistake, and delivered him to the heaven of the diligent.
In this heaven there is everything anyone could wish for, except leisure.
Here the men always exclaim, “Where’s the time to stand and stare?” The women tell each other, “See you later, there’s lots of work still left to do.” Everyone here says, “Time is invaluable.” Nobody here says, “Time is valueless.”
“I just can’t cope anymore!” rues anybody and everybody, and revels in this lament.

This story, written in 1921, was a harbinger of the post-modern irreal imagination and one of the earliest instances of absurd fiction in any Asian language. It is taken from Tagore's collection of microfictions Lipika (‘Scribings’).

KJ #69 IN TRANSLATION
Troopers’ Inn – Takenishi Hiroko, trans. Lawrence Rogers

The maid, fuming, was at the sink washing dishes and talking to herself.
“That fool officer! Why didn’t he let his men eat? We made a special effort for them! An officer who can’t feel for his men can’t be a decent leader!”
She went on vilifying the officer. Hisashi’s mother sensed the maid’s complaints were on the mark. She began to think that the officer had not even considered their feelings, let alone what his men felt, but then she reconsidered. No, she decided, she couldn’t expect it to not have been a trial for him as well. How much easier it would have been to have given the rice cakes to his men. Putting it in that light, she felt sorry for the officer as well, not just his men.

KJ #69 The Barter – Ho Anh Thai (trans. Ho Anh Thai & Wayne Karlin), artwork by Gregory Myers
While I was studying in India, I had a German classmate with whom I also shared a room in the hostel. In a word, we were roommates.
The first day we met, he introduced himself with these words: “I am Heinrich, from Bavaria, located in the south of Germany.”

I told him I had read the work of the German poet Heinrich Heine, his namesake. He shrugged—nowadays, he said, everyone was writing poetry. I abandoned nineteenth century German literature and mentioned Heinrich Boll and Erich Maria Remarque. He looked at me suspiciously, as if I were trying to trap him into admitting some association with criminals wanted by Interpol.

See also online feature "The Man who Believed in Fairytales" by Ho Anh Thai

KJ #68 Of Singing Clams & Soccer Camp
Searching for Japanese children's literature in English translation
Avery Fischer Udagawa
Beyond fond memories, cherished children’s stories fill us with visions, questions, and ideas — thoughts that nudge us for years, their origins gradually fading from mind until, one day, we rediscover them, perhaps while seeking books for our own children. We may realize then that certain stories, and ways of telling them, have shaped our definition of a superb children’s book, even as they have become part of who we are.
The question of whether such books are translations rarely occurs to us...

KJ #68 While the Beans are Cooking
Awa Naoko, translated by Toshiya Kamei, artwork by Amane Kaneko

The fox and the shrikes were not the only ones who wanted what Sankichi carried in his rucksack. A weasel pestered him, following him around, whenever he bought dried fish. Just before New Year's, an ogre chased after him, wanting his black beans. As always, Sankichi heard someone call his name. When he turned around, he found a big ogre in leather clothes staring at him. Horrified, Sankichi tried to run away. Then the ogre said in an unexpectedly quiet voice, "I don't want them for free. I'll trade you one go of gingko berries for one go of black beans."

Nakedness Is Just Another Way To Clothe Yourself:
Lin Yichuan, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter

Puta: a poem by Elynia Mabanglo, translated by Pia Arboleda & Jorge Andrada, with commentary by Pia Arboleda

“That was how the folklorist discovered that Eightpines had once had a custom of drawing ingots to designate a “man-ghost.” Immediately, he sensed that this was likely to be the most valuable finding of his research.... . It occurred to him that during his career as researcher, it was the first time he had encountered such an appalling custom. In the heat of the tavern stove, his thoughts began to turn feverishly; and finally it occurred to him that the ideal way to record the custom for posterity would be to recreate it. Turning to a white-haired old man, he asked, 'Do you recall how the ceremony used to be performed?'”

KJ #62 Cloudburst
by Fujisawa Shuhei, translation and commentary by Gary Alderson

"It didn't occur to him that there are both happy and unhappy people in the world. Nor did it occur to him that those who are happy now may not always be happy, and that those who are now unhappy may find happiness again. The laughter had triggered only an intense hatred for the happy ones — a hatred that saturated his heart."

This translation won the Distinguished Translation Award at the 2005 Shizuoka International Translation Competition.

KJ #57: Agreeing on Agreement
by Uchida Tatsuru, translated by Kawasaki Takeshi

The introduction from Kodomo Wa Wakatte Kurenai (Children Don't Understand Us), a collection of essays on the relationship between younger and older generations, published by Yosen-sha, Tokyo (September 2003).

KJ #56: They Who Render Anew
by Avery Fischer

Interviews with contemporary literary translators Juliet Winters Carpenter, Janine Beichman, Sam Hamill, Leza Lowitz & Oketani Shogo, Elaine Gerbert, and Royall Tyler, exploring their diversified approaches to introducing Japanese writers to Western readers, and comparing various translations of well-known works.