Rebecca’s Reflections
My Grotesque Year
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...
Translating Grotesque: Mountain Magic
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...
Translating Grotesque—The Cruelest Cuts
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...
Finding Japanese Mystery Fiction
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...
IKKO’s Kimono Transbeauty
Today’s post is provided by Dr. Jan Bardsley, Professor Emerita, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Jan is well known for her captivating studies of Japanese women, from beauty queens to housewives and now, most recently, to maiko. Her forthcoming monograph,...
Tattoos in Japan: Innovation, Customization, Transformation
Today’s post is provided by David Holloway, Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester. David specializes in contemporary Japanese fiction with focus on gender, sexuality, and issues of embodiment. I’ve known David for many years, initially as a student (he...