Books on Asia

Cathy Hirano on Fantasy in Japanese Literature

November 13, 2018

By Cathy Hirano

Nahoko Uehashi is a prolific and well-loved Japanese author of fantasy as well as non-fiction. The list of awards she has won is impressive and includes the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, considered the Nobel Prize of children’s literature. During her writing career, which extends over three decades, she produced the 12-volume Moribito series, the 4-volume Beast Player series and The Deer King, a 2-volume epic encompassing more than 1,000 pages. Amazingly, through much of that period, she was also working as a full-time professor of cultural anthropology. Although most of her fantasies tend to be classified as children’s and young adult literature, a look at publisher surveys shows her readership spans all ages. Seventy percent of those who purchase her million-sellers range in age from their 30s into their 60s, with a particularly high concentration among women in their 30s and 40s. Her fan base includes elementary school students and seniors. While some adults are certainly buying the books for children, many are reading them for their own entertainment.

Authors of contemporary Japanese fantasy, including Uehashi, were nurtured by a very rich body of translated (into Japanese) fantasy literature, including such classics as Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books. But Japan also has its own rich heritage of myths, folktales and literature on which to draw. Blending the real and the fantastic, these stories feature gods and goddesses, monster-vanquishing heroes, and strange, supernatural creatures known as yokai. This foundation is clearly reflected in manga and anime culture, which is now so popular in the West. Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, and such anime series as Naruto, Inuyasha and Yokai Watch are good examples. Uehashi herself attributes her lifelong love for stories to the folktales she heard at her grandmother’s knee as a child.

I think the broad appeal of Uehashi’s work lies in her ability to create worlds so authentic that they seem completely real. In addition, her complex and riveting plots, and believable characters are intriguing. Her exploration of universal themes, particularly the human fascination with “the other” lie at the bottom of much of her fantasy. As a translator and as someone living outside the culture in which I was raised, this theme of the other really resonates with me.

Her extensive knowledge and deep understanding of different cultures developed through her career as a cultural anthropologist gives her works a unique edge, enabling her to paint in rich detail not only the cultures, lifestyles and customs of the peoples she creates, but also their political systems, social values and religious beliefs. In fact, her descriptions of food are so enticing that a group of cooks got together to recreate the dishes described in all of her stories and published them as a cookbook.

At the same time, she leaves a lot to the imagination. For example, in The Beast Player, while the behavior of the Royal Beasts’ eating and mating habits are described in quite a bit of detail, their appearance is not. As a reader, this wasn’t a problem because I could picture them in my mind but when I went to translate the book, I found I didn’t know if they had four legs or two. And I had to look at the anime, for which Uehashi approved the portrayal, in order to make sure.

Uehashi’s works have influenced creators in other genres, such as in anime and film. She is collaborative in her approach and has an intense respect for, and understanding of, what it takes to translate a work into another language or medium. She is clear on what parts cannot be compromised in order to retain the integrity of the original work yet flexible on those parts that need to change to bridge the gap.

Other Popular Fantasy Authors

According to Otona no fantaji dokubon, a book that introduces fantasies published in Japan that can be enjoyed by adults as well as younger readers, the following authors (in addition to Uehashi) have had at least one of their fantasy works published in English: Noriko Ogiwara (Dragon Sword and Wind Child, Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince), Eiko Kadono (Kiki’s Delivery Service), winner of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award, Miyuki Miyabe (Brave Story, The Book of Heroes), Fuyumi Ono (The Twelve Kingdoms series), Tomiko Inui (The Secret of the Blue Glass) and Naoko Awa (The Fox’s Window and Other Stories).

However, Otona no fantaji dokubon also indicates there are many Japanese fantasy authors that have yet to be discovered by the English-language world. That’s not so surprising considering the low percentage of Japanese books published in English.

Some award-winning not yet translated Japanese fantasies and their authors include Sachiko Kashiwaba’s Kiri no muko no fushigi na machi (The Marvelous Village Veiled in Mist) which inspired the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away, Riku Onda’s Tokono Monogatari (Tales of the Tokono), Jun Okada’s Nifunkan no boken (Two-Minute Adventure), and Kaho Nashiki’s Uraniwa (Back Yard). Some more recent fantasy authors are Tomoko Inuishi (Yoru no shahonshi: Scribe of Sorcery) and Chisato Abe (Karasu ni hitoe wa niawanai: Unlined Kimono Don’t Suit Crows).

See Nahoko Uehashi’s English website.

The author would like to thank Yumiko Kotake, Ritsuko Sanbe and the Yamaneko Honyaku Club for helping with this article.

About Cathy Hirano: Cathy lives in Shikoku, Japan and has translated a variety of fiction and non-fiction books including best-selling authors Nahoko Uehashi and Marie Kondo.

Review—Cake Tree in the Ruins

November 11, 2018

NEW RELEASE! Moving stories that tell of the absurd violence of war, and tenderly depict the animals and children caught in its vortex.

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The Cake Tree in the Ruins, by Akiyuki Nosaka (Transl. Ginny Tapley Takemori)

Pushkin Press (Nov. 13, 2018)

Reviewed by Suzanne Kamata

As an American reader, conditioned to expect happily-ever-after endings, or at least those in which justice is served, I found this to be an odd and disturbing book. From the titles of stories such as “The Whale That Fell in Love with a Submarine,” “The Mother That Turned into a Kite,” and “A Balloon in August,” one might expect whimsy or fantasy. While they do contain a bit of whimsy, these tales, rendered in highly readable English by translator Ginny Tapley Takemori, are not easily categorized.

Although the story about the whale, “a complete flop with the ladies,” and his quest for a mate starts out sweetly, we discover that the submarine he falls in love with is actually preparing for a suicide attack on the American fleet. In “The Mother That Turned into a Kite,” a woman tries to protect her son from flames caused by incendiary bombs by smearing him with her bodily fluids – first, sweat, then tears, and breastmilk. Finally, devoid of moisture, she becomes flat and floats away. “A Balloon in August” features a group of unnamed, undistinguished Japanese children who are tasked with making hot air balloons out of paper made from mulberry trees, and glue made from konnyaku paste. The balloons are then used to convey incendiary bombs to America.

Many of the stories feature animals, which might lead one to believe that these are lighthearted children’s tales. While Nosaka did write with children in mind, American parents accustomed to Disney finales would probably be surprised at how these stories turn out. Spoiler alert: almost every main character, child and animal alike, dies in the end.

Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. As Nosaka writes in “The Elephant and Its Keeper,” “Too many undernourished people and animals appear in these stories, I know, but it was wartime, after all.” Each story is dated August 15, 1945, the date on which Emperor Hirohito gave a radio address announcing the surrender of Japan to the Allied forces. As noted at the beginning of the book, since 1982, August 15 has also been known as “The day for mourning of war dead and praying for peace.” War is sad and tragic, Nosaka seems to be reminding us. There is no way to sugarcoat the reality of it, and it would be wrong to do so.

Nevertheless, there are moments of grace, however fleeting. A starving she-wolf thinks of eating a little girl, but after discovering that she has been abandoned by her mother, gives her a ride on her back instead. A zookeeper ignores orders to kill an elephant, and escapes with it into the hills. A solider on a beach hallucinates a happy trip under the sea.

In her book On the Bullet Train with Emily Bronte, scholar and author Judith Pascoe writes of a conversation with Japanese author Minae Mizumura in which the latter opines about “American editors’ intolerance for anything that might be strange or off-putting to readers.” According to Mizumura, when reading works in translation, “Japanese readers are aware of the oddity of what they are reading, but undeterred by this awareness.” Pascoe writes, “I thought about Japanese readers down-shifting as they confronted the first pages of foreign literary works, while American readers insisted on a smooth frictionless reading experience, unhappy with any grinding between gears.” Reading in translation is akin, then, to traveling to a foreign country. Both can be unsettling, even jarring, but ultimately broaden our horizons if we remain open to the experience.

While The Cake Tree in the Ruins might seem confounding at first, it is a haunting and unforgettable collection, worthwhile for readers of many ages.

Read an excerpt of Cake Tree in the Ruins here.

About the Reviewer: Suzanne Kamata is an American, but she has lived in Shikoku for over half of her life. Her books include The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 1997) the award-winning short story collection The Beautiful One Has Come (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, 2011) and novel Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible (GemmaMedia, 2013), which was named a book of Outstanding Merit by Bank Street College. She is an associate professor of English at Naruto University of Education. For more info, visit http://www.suzannekamata.com.

About the Author: Akiyuki Nosaka (1930 – 2015) won the Naoki Prize in 1967 for his stories Grave of the Fireflies and American Hijiki (included in the Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories).

Issue 3: Japanese Literature in Translation

September 30, 2018

In Issue 3 of Books on Asia, we introduce three prominent women translators of Japanese literature: Juliet Winters Carpenter, Ginny Tapley Takemori and Cathy Hirano. All three have translated prize-winning literature from best-selling Japanese authors such as Marie Kondo, Abe Kobo, and Ryu Murakami. These women have been instrumental in bringing Japanese literature to English readers.

Go to Issue 3: Japanese Literature in Translation

Books

The Great Passage

By Shion Miura (Author), Juliet Winters Carpenter (Translator), AmazonCrossing, 2017 September 30, 2018

First published as Fune o amu 船を編む Kobunhsa Co., Ltd, Japan 2011

Synopsis: Kohei Araki believes that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years of creating dictionaries, it’s time for him to retire and find his replacement.

He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime—a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics—whom he swipes from his company’s sales department.

Along with an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the words that connect us all.

Excerpt from Chapter 1:

Kohei Araki had devoted his entire life—his entire working life—to dictionaries.

Words fascinated him, always had.

He had learned early on that dog contained other meanings besides the four-legged animal. Once when his father had taken him to the movies, a blood splattered gangster, betrayed and dying on screen, spat out the words “Damn that dog!” The gang boss, upon receiving word of the gangster’s demise, jumped up and shouted, “What are you all standing around here for? Polish your daggers! Don’t let him die a dog’s death!” So the word could also mean “pointless.”

Dogs were faithful partners—trustworthy, intelligent, endearing—yet dog could also refer to a traitor or a condition of meaninglessness. How strange! In his child’s mind he tried to work out how this could be. Faithfulness to the point of servility, devotion going pathetically unrewarded—all the more pathetic as it increased its intensity. Perhaps such canine traits were responsible for the negative associations attached to the word.

Despite his precocious interest in words, Kohei Araki’s first real encounter with the dictionary came later. His working class parents, busy stocking their hardware store and waiting on customers, had been little inclined to buy him a dictionary or urge him to study. Their educational philosophy was “If the boy is healthy and stays out of trouble, that’s good enough.” Araki, for his part, had been less interested in studying then in playing outdoors with his friends. The lone dictionary in his elementary school classroom had failed to impress him. It was simply there, an object whose spine occasionally entered his field of vision.

Everything changed with his first dictionary, the Iwanami Japanese Dictionary, a present from his uncle to celebrate the start of junior high. From the moment he took the book in his hands, he was hooked. The pleasure of opening up a dictionary of his own and leafing through it was indescribable. The entrancing shiny cover, the closely printed lines on every page, the feel of the thin paper. Most of all, he liked the concise definitions.

One night, as he and his younger Brother were romping in the living room, their father had scolded them: “Keep your voices down!” As an experiment Araki had looked up the word koe (voice). This was the definition:

Koe (noun) 1. sounds people and animals make using a special organ in the throat. 2. a sound resembling vocal utterance. 3. the approach of the a time of life.

Examples of the word’s usage were also listed. Some were familiar, like koe o ageru (to raise one’s voice) or mushi no koe (the cry of an insect). Others would never have occurred to him: to sense the approach of autumn was to “hear the voice of autumn,” to be nearing one’s 40s was to “hear the voice of forty.” The idea was novel to him, but he realized it was true: koe could definitely convey “the approach of the a time of life.” Just like dog the word contained a range of meanings. Reading the dictionary could awaken you to new meaning of commonly used words, meanings of surprising breadth and depth…..

…..Araki began saving up his allowance for trips to the used bookstore. When a new edition of a dictionary came out, a copy of the earlier edition could usually be purchased on the cheap. Little by little he collected a variety of dictionaries from different publishers and compared them. Some were tattered and worn. Others had annotations and underlining in red. Old dictionaries bore signs of the linguistic struggles of compiler and user alike.

Araki dreamed of becoming a philologist or a scholar of the Japanese language and getting his name on a dictionary. The summer before his senior year in high school he asked his father to send him to college.

About the Author: Shion Miura (三浦しをん) born 1979, has published more than fifteen collections of essays and is a manga aficionado. In 2000, she made her fiction debut with Kakuto suru mono ni mar (A Passing Grade for Those Who Fight). In 2006, she won the Naoki Prize for her linked-story collection Mahoro ekimae Tada Benriken (The Handymen in Mahoro Town). Her other novels include Kase ga tsukoku fuiteriru (The Wind Blows Hard), Kogure-so monogatari (The Kogure Apartments), and Ano ie ni kurasu yonin no onna (The Four Women Living in That House). The Great Passage received the Booksellers Award in Japan in 2012 and was developed into a major motion picture.

About the Translator: Juliet Winters Carpenter is a professor of English literature at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts and one of the foremost translators of Japanese literature working today. Her translations include, among others, Kobo Abe’s “Beyond the Curve,” Fumiko Enchi’s “Masks,” Ryotaro Shiba’s “The Last Shogun,” Jun’ichi Watanabe’s “A Lost Paradise,” and Machi Tawara’s “Salad Anniversary.” See Hon Podcast 03: Juliet Winters Carpenter Talks About Translating Japanese Literature.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 3: Juliet Winters Carpenter talks about translating Japanese Literature

September 29, 2018

In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, Amy meets up with Juliet Winters Carpenter to talk about her 70 or so translated works of Japanese literature including Shion Miura’s The Great Passage, Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel, Shiba Ryōtaro’s Clouds Above the Hill, Jun’ichiro Saga’s Memories of Wind and Waves, and Abe Kōbō’s Secret Rendezvous. (more…)

Ginny Tapley Takemori on translating Convenience Store Woman

September 29, 2018

Convenience Store Woman was originally published as Conbini ningen (Bungeishunju Ltd., Tokyo, 2016)

Ginny Tapley Takemori talks with Books on Asia about translating “Convenience Store Woman,” for the English audience

Books on Asia: Convenience Store Woman challenges us to reconsider how we should define a “normal person” in modern society and prods us to accept people who may be different from our own ideal of what is “normal” or even acceptable. In some ways, Japan seems a more traditional society from the US or UK when it comes to marriage, family and a good job being universal and absolute norms.

Takemori: I think the pressures on individuals to get married, have a career and so forth, are very present in other countries too, although perhaps not quite to the same extent—or in the same way—that they are in Japan. In this respect the central issues in the book are universally understandable and I didn’t really have to work hard to bring those across. Of course the multi-faceted convenience store is a very Japanese phenomenon, so I did have to actively work to bring it alive in the imagination of readers who have never experienced it—but really, Murata’s descriptions are so detailed that most of the time the original speaks for itself.

BOA: What kind of cultural sensitivities (regarding mental health, for example) did you have to consider when translating the story into English? One Books on Asia reader questioned whether Keiko is perhaps autistic. Is this something that was addressed in the original? Do you think it even matters?

Takemori: I think Murata wanted to create a character who was absolutely logical in her approach to life, utterly non-emotional, non-judgmental, and lacking in what society as a whole would call common sense, as a way to examine what society generally thinks of as “normal.” Through Keiko’s hyperlogical perspective, we can see how illogical and rather odd “normality” actually is. However, all readers will bring their own life view and experience to their reading of a book. Perhaps you can say it’s a kind of reverse cultural sensitivity, which in itself is quite interesting. I would hope, though, that giving a label to Keiko’s “abnormality” doesn’t detract from the novel’s main purpose of highlighting how very strange “normal” actually is.

BOA: One of the things a couple of BOA readers have mentioned about the book is how short it is. I don’t know how many pages it is but my Kindle told me I could read it in 3 hours. One BOA reader even felt the book was too short and that the author could have spent more time explaining some of the issues.

Takemori: It is on the short side, only around 150 pages in the original Japanese and 160 pages in the English. Perhaps you could say it is more a novella than a novel, although it was published originally as a novel in Japan (the hardcover edition alone sold over 600,000 copies). I don’t think there are such rigid criteria in Japanese publishing, and you often get very short novels. For the English edition of Convenience Store Woman there had been an idea of possibly publishing it together with some short stories, but when the editor read the full translation he decided it was strong enough to work in a standalone edition, which I think was absolutely the best decision, and true to the original.

BOA: Yes, and we have novellas in the English world as well. Come to think of it, “The Perks of Being a Wall Flower,” a coming-of-age novel by Stephen Chbosky, is extremely short, but seems to be just enough. There is also the keitai shosetsu short novel in Japan. Can you explain this genre?

Takemori:The keitai shosetsu genre is where authors (usually hiding their identity behind a pen name) write installments of a novel on their cell phone and send them out directly to a subscription mailing list via email, SMS or website. I’m not sure to what extent Murata may have been influenced by the trend, any more than other young novelists writing in Japan today, but I can say that she is a superb literary author, a master of the short-story, and is a well-established novelist (most of her novels are a more conventional length of around 250 pages).

BOA: Being British, did you translate into British English or American English? Personally, I wish American publishers wouldn’t change British English spelling and references because I feel that part of the fun of reading is discovering differences in language. I am curious if Grove Press changed any of the English to account for the American version?

Takemori: I aim for a literary language that is neither particularly British nor American, although of course there will be some influence depending on who I’m translating for. I translated this for Grove Press, an American publisher, and so it is nominally in American English. They changed very little of my translation beyond normal editing. There are peculiarities of phrase such as “Thank you for your custom” but my intention here and elsewhere was to create a formulaic-sounding language to roughly approximate the manual-dictated customer service language (baito keigo as it’s known in Japanese) in which there is really no equivalent for in English. It shouldn’t sound too natural! That said, yes, I do find it a bit sad that American publishers generally change British English to cater to their readers. British publishers rarely do this, and UK readers are quite accustomed to handling all types of English from around the world, which I feel adds to the richness of the reading experience.

BOA: Several themes in the book should make us pause for further thought. The convenience store provides a safe, predictable place, an environment which allows certain people to thrive in a more facile job. Such people might not appreciate the lack of a routine or the unpredictability of a job in a more challenging work environment. “The convenience store is a normalized environment” is brought up a few times by Keiko, the main character. She takes comfort that as long as you wear the uniform and repeat the set phrases, customers will see you as “staff” and won’t ask you any questions beyond where a certain product is shelved. In addition, as “staff” you only have to suggest the special of the day. Even two of the long-term customers comment that “This place doesn’t really change, does it?”

Takemori: In Japan, working in a convenience store is seen as a very temporary job filled by students and housewives. There is a manual to dictate every work function and phrases to use with customers, and this is practiced daily at the start of every shift—and is necessary to ensure continuity for an ever fluid workforce. But for Keiko, it functions like a manual for life generally. She is unable to function outside that predictable environment, and even finds comfort in the routine and satisfaction in doing the job to perfection.

BOA: The convenience store also allows someone like Shiraha, the new employee, to fulfill his desire to “just breathe without anyone interfering in my life.” But even he doesn’t really fit the convenience store mold, revealing how contradictory we humans are, if indeed we are even human.

Takemori: Shiraha is an outsider too, but there is a fundamental difference between him and Keiko: Keiko doesn’t resent society, she wants to fit in but doesn’t know how, whereas Shiraha probably could fit in but doesn’t want to, and resents the pressure on him—whether in the store or anywhere else. His response to this is to retreat and hide from society, but this won’t work for Keiko—in fact, when she loses the predictable environment of the store, she is left rudderless and falls apart.

BOA: Yes, I felt that she had lost her ikigae (reason for being) once she gave up her job. And I guess many of us feel that way when we lose or give up a job, no matter what kind of job it is. Many people really struggle to adjust to not having a job when they retire at an advanced age, for example. So maybe Keiko is actually normal.

Takemori: What I find so brilliant about this book is how Murata has, through Keiko’s uncritical, unresentful, uncomprehending but well-meaning gaze, shone a light onto how society works and how utterly strange it actually is. I think this is something not limited to Japan, but is quite universal really, and we would all do well to examine what we take for granted as “normal.”

Ginny Tapley Takemori lives in rural Japan and has translated fiction by more than a dozen early modern and contemporary Japanese writers, from bestsellers Ryu Murakami and Kyotaro Nishimura to literary greats Izumi Kyoka and Okamoto Kido. Her most recent book publications include Earthlings (Oct. 2020) by Sakaka Murata, The Little House by Kyoko Nakajima, (2019) Miyuki Miyabe’s five-volume Puppet Master and Tomiko Inui’s The Secret of the Blue Glass, shortlisted for the Marsh Award, and her short fiction translations have appeared in Granta, Freeman’s, Words Without Borders, and a number of anthologies. Her translation of Sayaka Murata’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Convenience Store Woman was named by New Yorker magazine as one of the best books of 2018.

Books

Convenience Store Woman

By Sayaka Murata (Author), Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator), Grove Press, 2018 September 29, 2018

The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies in her home country, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction—many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual—and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…

A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

From Grove Press:

In Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata has written a bewitching portrayal of contemporary Japan, taking a sharp and timely look at the pressure to conform. Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, this “smart and sly novel” (Publishers Weekly) has the reading world talking this summer.

As The New Yorker‘s Katy Waldman writes:

“The novel borrows from Gothic romance, in its pairing of the human and the alluringly, dangerously not. It is a love story, in other words, about a misfit and a store. Keiko’s self-renunciations reveal the book to be a kind of grim post-capitalist reverie” Waldman continues:

[S]he is an anti-Bartleby, abandoning any shred of identity outside of her work.”

“It may make readers anxious, but the book itself is tranquil—dreamy, even—rooting for its employee-store romance from the bottom of its synthetic heart.”

Fresh Air’s literary critic-at-large John Powers also delighted in Convenience Store Woman. “[O]ne pleasure of this book is her detailed portrait of how [a Japanese convenience store] actually works,” Powers begins; however, he continues,

“[T]he book’s true brilliance lies in Murata’s way of subverting our expectations.”

Readers curious about this book’s author, who herself worked in a convenience store for almost 20 years, will enjoy the recent Sayaka Murata profile featured in the New York Times. In her interview for the profile with Motoko Rich, Murata said of the novel,

“I wanted to illustrate how odd the people who believe they are ordinary or normal are.”

Among other accolades, Convenience Store Woman has been named an Indies Introduce Title, an Indie Next Pick, and an Amazon Best Book of the Month (Literature and Fiction). Recent reviews from Barnes & Noble (“Keiko’s affectless, rather chilly approach lends itself to exquisitely deadpan comedy”) and The Huffington Post (“Through the eyes of perceptive, dispassionate Keiko, the ways in which we’re all commodified and reduced to our functions become clear”) have made illuminating commentary on this hit title as well.

About the Author: Sayaka Murata is one of Japan’s most exciting contemporary writers. She still works part time in a convenience store, which was the inspiration to write Convenience Store Woman, her English-language debut and winner of one of Japan’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Akutagawa Prize. She was named a Freeman’s “Future of New Writing” author, and her work has appeared in Granta and elsewhere. In 2016, Vogue Japan selected her as a Woman of the Year.

Ginny Tapley Takemori lives in rural Japan and has translated fiction by more than a dozen early modern and contemporary Japanese writers, from bestsellers Ryu Murakami and Kyotaro Nishimura to literary greats Izumi Kyoka and Okamoto Kido. Her most recent book publications include Miyuki Miyabe’s five-volume Puppet Master and Tomiko Inui’s The Secret of the Blue Glass, shortlisted for the Marsh Award, and her short fiction translations have appeared in Granta, Freeman’s, Words Without Borders, and a number of anthologies. Her translation of Sayaka Murata’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Convenience Store Woman was published in June 2018 to great acclaim. Her translation of Kyoko Nakajima’s The Little House is forthcoming in 2019. Read the BOA interview: Ginny Tapley Takemori on Translating Convenience Store Woman.

Books

The Beast Player

By Nahoko Uehashi (Author), Cathy Hirano (Translator), Pushkin Children's Books, 2018 September 29, 2018

“When trying to translate from Japanese to English, when reaching out to the English reader across differences in culture and fundamental thought processes, I feel like Elin standing there playing her harp for Leelan, knowing full well that she can never convey even a fraction of what is in her heart, and never fully understand what is in Leelan’s, but still longing to do so, to make that ‘unexpected music.’ There are moments in all Uehashi’s stories that touch on that cord that stir my heart and make me laugh or weep.” —Cathy Hirano, translator of The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi

One girl links beasts with humankind. She has the power to save them both. Or to destroy them.

Elin’s family have an important responsibility: caring for the Toda, the giant lizards that form the core of their kingdom’s army. So when some of the beasts mysteriously die, Elin’s mother is sentenced to death as punishment. With her last breath she manages to send her daughter to safety.

Alone, far from home, Elin soon discovers that she can talk to both the ferocious Toda and the majestic flying beasts that guard her queen. This skill gives her great powers, but it also involves her in deadly plots that could cost her life. Can she save herself and prevent her beloved beasts from being used as tools of war? Or must she face the terrible battles to come?

Excerpt from the Prologue:

Sohyon’s Finger Flute

Elin woke to the sound of the door opening. It was not yet dawn. In the blackness outside, the rain drummed incessantly on the shingled roof. Elin could vaguely make out the shape of her mother as she washed her hands in the dirt-floored kitchen, then turned and trod softly to the sleeping area. As she slid under the covers, she brought with her the scent of rain and of Toda, the huge water serpents that bore men to battle. Toda Warriors were easily identified by the distinctive musk-like odor of the membrane coating the Toda’s scales. It clung to them wherever they went, and to Elin’s mother, too; a sweet, familiar scent that had surrounded Elin from the moment she was born.

“Mother, was that thunder?”

“It’s a long way off. Don’t worry. The storm’s over the mountains, not here. Now go to sleep.”

With a deep sigh, Elin closed her eyes. The image of her mother’s white hand slowly, cautiously, caressing the Toda hovered in her mind. She loved the stillness of her mother’s face as she gazed at the enormous beasts. Her mother was in charge not of just any Toda, but of the strongest, the Kiba or “fangs.” These formed the vanguard of the Toda forces. Not even the fathers of her best friends, Saju and Chok, were entrusted with the care of the Stone Chambers reserved for the Kiba. Elin’s heart filled with pride when she thought of how highly the Toda Stewards regarded her mother’s skill as a beast doctor.

She followed her mother to the Chambers whenever she could, even if it meant she had to sew, haul water or do other chores later. But although she longed to stroke the serpents’ hides, her mother had warned her never to try. “The Toda are fearsome creatures,” she had said calmly, her eyes following their gliding forms where they churned the surface of the deep, dark pool. “If you got too near, they would sense you instantly and snap you in two, then swallow you in a single bite. You’ve seen me touch them so often you think it must be easy, but don’t let that fool you. The Toda will never be tamed… They aren’t meant to be tamed. Toda Stewards like me, and even the Riders, wouldn’t dare touch them without a Silent Whistle to immobilize them.” She opened her palm to reveal a small whistle….

Nahoko Uehashi is a writer of fantasy titles, whose books have sold more than a million copies in Japan. She has won numerous awards, including the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award, which she received for her contribution to children’s literature throughout her life. She has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and has studied indigenous peoples in Australia. She lives near Tokyo, Japan.

About the Translator: Cathy Hirano lives in Shikoku, Japan and has translated a variety of books including best-selling authors Marie Kondo and Nahoko Uehashi.

Books

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

By Marie Kondo (Author), Cathy Hirano (Translator), Ten Speed Press, 2016 September 28, 2018

“It was fun. A challenge. Especially how get concepts that are very Japanese across, such as all things having a soul. I was sure people would think she was crazy. And yes, I do Kondo my clothes…” Cathy Hirano, Translator

With over 13,000 reviews on Amazon, Marie Kondo can truly say she has changed the world!

From the Introduction:

I started reading home and lifestyle magazines when I was five, and it was this that first inspired me, from the age of 15, to undertake a serious study of tidying that led to my development of the KonMari Method (based on a combination of my first and last names). I am now a consultant and spend most of my days visiting homes and offices, giving hands-on advice to people who find it difficult to tidy but suffer rebounds, or who want to tidy but don’t know where to start.

The number of things my clients have discarded, from clothes and undergarments to photos, pans, magazine clippings, and make up samples, easily exceeds 1 million items. This is no exaggeration. I have assisted individual clients who have thrown out two hundred 45-liter garbage bags in one go.

From my exploration of the art of organizing and my experience helping messy people become tidy, there is one thing I can say with confidence. A dramatic reorganization of the home causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and prospective. It is life transforming. I mean it. Here are just a few of the testimonies I receive on a daily basis from former clients.

After your course, I quit my job and launched my own business doing something I had dreamed of doing ever since I was a child.

——

Your course taught me to see what I really need and what I don’t. So I got a divorce. Now I feel much happier.

——

Someone I have been wanting to get in touch with recently contacted me.

——

I’m delighted to report that since cleaning up at my apartment, I have been able to really increase my sales.

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My husband and I are getting along much better.

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I’m amazed to find that just throwing things away has changed me so much.

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I finally succeeded in losing 10 pounds.

My clients always sound so happy, and the results show that tidying has changed their way of thinking and their approach to life. In fact, it has changed their future. Why? This question is addressed in more detail throughout the book, but basically, when you put your house in order, you put your affairs in your past. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don’t, what you should and shouldn’t do.

About the Author: Marie Kondo is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (also a best seller in Japan, Germany, and the UK) and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2015. She is the founder of the KonMari Method.

About the Translator: Cathy Hirano lives in Shikoku, Japan and has translated a variety of books including best-selling authors Marie Kondo and Nahoko Uehashi.

Books

Spark Joy

By Marie Kondo (Author), Cathy Hirano (Translator), Ten Speed Press, 2016 September 28, 2018

In this Master Course, Marie Kondo gives more detailed instructions on how to fold, organize and categorize.

From Chapter I: Honing your sensitivity to joy:

Tidying is the act of confronting yourself; cleaning is the act of confronting nature.

If you don’t know what brings you joy, start with things close to your heart.

“It might come in handy” is taboo.

For essential things that don’t bring joy, look at what they do for you.

Don’t confuse temporary clutter with rebound.

No matter how cluttered it looks, don’t pause, don’t stop, don’t quit.

If you were terrible at tidying, you’ll experience the most dramatic change.

About the Translator: Cathy Hirano lives in Shikoku, Japan and has translated a variety of books including best-selling authors Marie Kondo and Nahoko Uehashi.

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