by Rebecca Copeland | Feb 10, 2021 | Mystery Fiction
When I was a child I loved reading mystery novels. My older sisters passed along their copies of Nancy Drew and I was drawn to her sleuthing skills and bold behavior. I devoured The Secret of the Old Clock, The Secret in the Old Attic, and many others. My favorite was... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Jan 27, 2021 | Japanese Culture
If I had it all to do over again, I would do it differently. Of course, I didn’t know then what I know now. I had been given the opportunity to translate Kirino Natsuo’s award-winning novel, Grotesque, and I was elated. It was the first time I’d been contracted to... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Jan 13, 2021 | Japanese Culture
I was not the first pick to translate Kirino Natsuo’s Grotesque. Kirino’s agent went the rounds of other translators before being directed to me. And once she found me, she did not give me a contract on the spot. I had to “try out” for the job. She sent me several... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Dec 30, 2020 | Japanese Culture
I like translating. I enjoy the experience of entering a text, digging beneath the surface of the language in search of patterns and meanings and movement. I am exhilarated by the challenge of making these discoveries come alive in a second language. When it all comes... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Dec 16, 2020 | Japanese Culture
Sometimes you choose a project. Other times it chooses you. My first major translation project was Kirino Natsuo’s Grotesque. I came about the translation in a circuitous fashion. A Japanese Studies scholar in Canada wrote to tell me about an agent in the US who was... 
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