Translation news - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Some news that I'm really late at picking up on of the translation of Murakami Haruki's  Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage over at The Asahi Shimbun, which looks like it may arrive in 2014, although reading the article it maybe that Jay Rubin's translation of Murakami's Talking With Seiji Ozawa about Music may appear first. 

Kujikenaide/Don't Lose Heart to be published by Pighog Press

News recently out that Kujikenaide/ Don't Lose Heart by Toyo Shibata, the inspirational collection and phenomenally best selling poetry collection, (1.6 million copies sold), is set to be published in an English language U.K edition by the very excellent Brighton based publisher Pighog Press in Autumn 2013, in a translation by Maya Nakamura, the book was published originally in Japan by Asuka shinsha Publishing.

From the press release of Pighog Press -

"Pighog Press is to publish the first English language edition of Toyo Shibata's best selling poetry collection in Autumn 2013. Kujikenaide - 'Don't Lose Heart' by Toyo Shibata has been described as a Japanese phenomenon and has received worldwide attention. The inspirational collection has sold 1.6 million copies since it's initial publication in 2009.

 

 The first English Language collection of Shibata's poetry beautifully speaks of age, the hardships and joys of longevity and the relationship that that helped her through a century-long life. The collection encourages readers to love and enjoy every aspect of time and to share it with the people who matter most.

 

 Shibata began writing poetry at the age of 92 when back pain forced her to give up her hobby of traditional Japanese dance, which she had been practicing for decades. Since Shibata's passing in January 2013 at age 101, she has received worldwide appreciation for her beautiful poetry. Each poem in her collection discusses life intimately with a crystalized perception of family and the race of time we all must endure. Writing in a traditional Japanese poetic style of simplicity and truth, Shibata's best selling collection speaks of honesty with an abundance of strength."

 

 

Pighog Press

 

Asuka shisha Publishing

 

 

more information on Toyo Shibata at the Guardian and The Independent

 

 

 

     

39th Kawabata-sho announced

 

A little late on reporting the awarding of the 39th Kawabata Prize which as far as I can tell was announced over at Shinchosha at the end of last month, the award went to Tsumura Kikuko for Kyusuitou to Kame/The Water Tower and the Turtle, (?) a story whose narrator is trying to piece together the circumstances of the death of an elderly man in a remote town of Aomori.   

Among other awards Tsumura has previously also been awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 2008 for Potosuraimu no fune, and in the same year the Noma Literary Prize for new writers for Music Bless You!. she has also been the recipient of the Dazai Osamu Prize.

 

The Kawabata Prize was established in 1974, at the moment I could only locate three translations of previous winners of the Kawabata Prize, I hope I'm missing some ! -
 

 

the 14th (1987) - On Nakayama Hill - Furui Yoshikichi in The Ravine and Other Stories

 

the 10th (1983) - The Silent Traders - Tsushima Yuko in The Shooting Gallery and Other Stories

the 15th (1988) - Tree Shadows - Maruya Saiichi in Rain in the Wind - Stories

 

 

 

Thanks to M.

 

 

 

From the Fatherland, with Love - Murakami Ryu

From the Fatherland, with Love is a gargantuan book in many ways, its appearance into English has taken the work of three translators - Ralph McCarthy, Ginny Tapley Takemori and Charles De Wolf, the translation flows so well that you wonder at how they might have approached the translation, whether perhaps in parts individually or maybe as a group. The novel has been selected from the ever decreasing number of titles available through the JLPP, perhaps in English translation Murakami's novels appear to fall into various camps, in one there are what could be loosely called his tales of contemporary horror such as Audition, In the Miso Soup, Piercing, and in the other there are his stories chronicling the lives of the dissolute members of society, the Akutagawa Prize winning novel, Almost Transparent Blue, 69, and to an extent Coin Locker Babies, a common aspect to Murakami's writing is his ability to present in a dispassionate voice the raw and often brutal aspects of life as it is lived for his protagonists, in From the Fatherland, with Love this can be seen in the group of societal misfits and violent criminals that slowly come together under the enigmatic leader Ishihara. The novel was originally published in 2005 in two volumes and is set in 2011 where through economic down turning sees Japan's position in the world marginalised.

Although some of the characters are more prominent and longer lasting than others, (Ishihara, Tateno, Jo Su Ryeon, - the KEF's press officer), throughout the novel, there is not really a main protagonist to the book as the narrative comes to us through a number of various characters points of view, it begins to separate out into three main perspectives, that of the Ishihara gang, the KEF - (Koryo Expedition Force), that have landed in Fukuoka from North Korea to initially hijack the city's sports Dome and also to that of the Japanese authorities in a hastily convened emergency meeting that are responding to the invasion, the plot involves an elaborately planned deception. Reading From the Fatherland, with Love, you can be reminded of those series of history books entitled What if..?, Murakami has applied this question to create a hypothetical narrative that at times feels unnervingly convincing, probably one of the most terrifying aspects is the KEF's cruelty and torture which is cloaked under an amiable hospitality on the surface. The novel is a large one, but with it Murakami has created a space in which that through his characters has enabled him to explore and address the concerns which both reflect the real and also of the well pondered hypothetical. 

Similar to the epic novels of yesteryear at the beginning of the book there is a detailed list of principal characters, and as each character is introduced they are usually also given an additional biographical portrait, new characters are introduced even in the final pages although Murakami's view is panoramic in displaying how the unfolding events encroach into the lives of the novel's characters. As these events unfold we usually view them from one groups perspective, in places the full details of events are not fully disclosed to one party, so by turns we see how events are presented and then we see how they actually occur, each time this happens previously withheld details are revealed to the story and the narrative grows and develops, in this way it conveys very well the process of how information can be manipulated, it at times feels something akin to working your way through a series of inter locking rooms. Added to this there are events that we become aware of first but remain unknown to the characters, we read as they unknowingly approach the events we are already privy to. Trying to convey this fantastical plot line, it feels to begin with that there is a constant feed of facts provided to keep the feasibility of it afloat, and Murakami does a pretty convincing job at this, although with a novel of these proportions and alternating perspectives there's a few moments where it feels like it dips into occasional  repetition, but these are slight and essentially part of the novels structure.

Through this hypothetical narrative Murakami also gives over many episodes to examine many different issues, how the two different cultures perceive one another, the North Koreans surprise of the initial passivity of the Japanese, and as the soldiers become more adapted to life in Japan there are various scenes in which they become apparent of civil liberties previously unbeknown to them, and the added luxuries of smoking real brand cigarettes, the softness of the fabric of clothes, also the coming into contact with morally corrupting pornography which potentially threatens morale. Also in various instances the characters talk of the two nations past history and turbulent relationship, this probably is most markedly looked at near the end of the book in the relationship between Dr Seragi, an aging doctor who works in the hospital situated next to the KEF's encampment and Hyang Mok, a female member of the KEF, Dr Seragi had attempted in vain to halt an execution being carried out by the KEF, Hyang Mok witnessed him being restrained and taken away but later meets with him. In turn the conversation turns to events from each of their pasts, for Dr Seragi his regret and being unable to prevent executions carried out by the Japanese during the days of the occupation, and for Hyang Mok her sense of guilt over the death of her child through starvation.

Perhaps some might not appreciate how the novel develops a scenario or character only to drop it to move on to the next, it could be said that this is an integral to the novel's pacing, but if someone were also to mention that this is one of the most impressive of Murakami's novels to be translated to date, you'd probably be hard pressed  to disagree.


From the Fatherland, With Love at Pushkin Press

an interview with Murakami Ryu via Pushkin Press at vice.com

Many thanks to Pushkin Press for providing a reading copy.   





 

The Poetry of Living Japan

A recent purchase in a nearby second hand bookshop - The New Poetry, selected and introduced by A. Alvarez, published by Penguin which I've only just begun to explore, simply divided into two halves, one a selection from American poets, the other from British poets. Among the British is included D. J Enright, who I couldn't help notice that in the 1950's was a visiting professor to Konan University in Kobe. A little further probing uncovered that he along with Takamichi Ninomiya edited and introduced a selection of Japanese poetry entitled The Poetry of Living Japan published back in 1958. It features poems from a wide range of poets including - Tōson Shimazaki, Sakutarō Hagiwara, Tatsuji Miyoshi, Shinkichi Takahashi, Michizō Tachihara, to name but a few here, and also that it's available to read via Archive.org.

Also over at the very excellent publicdomainreview.org an interesting selection of Sketches by Yoshitoshi and also a look at the texts featured in The Rings of Saturn by W.G Sebald.

The Poetry of Living Japan at Archive.org.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An unexpected read, not having read Matsuo Bashō previously this translation which was first published in 1966 by Nobuyuki Yuasa seems like a good place to start, it's accompanied by an introduction that spans a little over forty pages, although quite lengthy and detailed it feels that this remains only a glimpse into Bashō and the Japan of his age, it offers a brief history of Bashō's beginnings and the steps leading up to his travels, as well as contextualizing him with the poets that influenced him, along with the introduction there are an additional twenty pages of very informative notes at the end of the book which are a good spur to delve further into the times of Bashō, the early Edo or Tokugawa period. Within the introduction Yuasa observes that in Oku no Hosomichi, "Bashō has mastered the art of writing haibun so completely that prose and haiku illuminate each other like two mirrors held up facing each other. This is something no one before him was able to achieve, and for this reason, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is counted as one of the classics of Japanese Literature", if you're coming to   Bashō for the first time, like myself, an observation like this gives a clear indication of it's magnitude, and there is much about Bashō that I've yet to learn, to take things further Haruo Shirane's - Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory and the Poetry of  Bashō could make an informative next read.

 

This collection presents five pieces of haibun, (prose and poetry), the last being Oku no Hosomichi and also maps of the routes   Bashō took that produced them. Reading these sketches you can begin to find yourself amongst a set of  various differing elements, initially the juxtaposition of the pacing of the prose with that of the haiku, in a quote from Bashō he observes the difference between himself and other writers who include in their poems solely objects they encounter in their surroundings, or topographically observations, his poems appear to have a more singularity of vision, derived from experience on the road, things seen that has moved him. In Bashō it can be felt quite prominently that all is in flux, for him everything must have been in a state of near or continual change, not only things in his immediate field of vision, but also the larger picture of the changing of the seasons. Some of the haiku included are from companions that joined him on his travels as well as those of people who he lodged with, friends and family, fellow poets and priests living an ascetic existence, turning the back to the material life, one that Bashō also practised.

Although the Oku no Hosomichi seems to end quite abruptly the reader is faced with contemplating the pacing of the piece and also with the thought that the translation into English, (or maybe any other language outside of Japan), will never capture the lyrical nature of the original, you begin to think back on the sights and events that have been described by  Bashō, and to perhaps contemplate on which of them might have held the heaviest gravitational pull, perhaps the difficulty in such an endeavour points to a more profound quality to the piece. The aspect that marvels the most in Bashō is that in everything there is an awareness of his antithetical nature, the renunciation of conventional thinking, as the piece proceeds it's easy to put to the back of the mind the distances he is covering, until he mentions that the distance to Kaga Province, 加賀国,,,,,, (modern day Ishikawa Prefecture), is a little over a hundred miles, you begin to turn again to the maps to reassess the lengths of his journey. There are a number of moments where the tug of the antithetical can be felt where on one occasion even a spot of moon viewing will fail to pull him out of a state of melancholy, and in another haiku, -


Bathed in such comfort,
In the balmy spring of Yamanaka,
I can do without plucking,
Life-preserving chrysanthemums.


Riddles within riddles in Bashō's haiku, in its abrupt ending another quality becomes apparent that although the journey is a spiritual one Bashō doesn't finish on a culminating summary of his walk, these remain in the haiku, the fleeting moments of his visions.



The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches at Penguin Books         

In Pursuit of Lavender

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Recently published from Anthem Press, a title selected by the JLPP which originally appeared in Japan in 2006 and is translated by Charles De Wolf, In Pursuit of Lavender follows two escapees from a psychiatric hospital who without any specific destination in mind embark on a road journey around Kyushu which becomes more revelatory the further they go. Their events are given to us from the perspective of Hana, whose history and condition begins to be relayed near the beginning of this ninety nine page novella, she hears a voice, a persistent male voice repeating- Twenty yards of linen are worth one coat , the meaning of this riddle and it's source remain elusive to her and thus us until its source is revealed to all later. In her past she suffered from visual hallucinations, a past suicide attempt saw her being admitted/taken to a mental hospital. The other character who joins her escape rather spontaneously is Nagoyan, a company man whose condition remains a slight mystery, perhaps work fatigue, later in the narrative he too displays suicidal tendencies, although Nagoyan is a nickname given to him when he was first admitted to the hospital as he pretended to come from Tokyo to hide his provincial background, which is a reoccurring theme running throughout the novella, the provincial against the metropolitan, Hana speaks with a Kyushu accent which Charles De Wolf has chosen to convey in his translation, but this attempt of Nagoyan to disguise his roots is a source of amusement to the other patients and bitterness and a deep resentment for him which runs until the final lines of the novella.

 

Allowed to walk to the local Lawson, they take the opportunity to escape and at first head for Nayoyan's apartment, (a 1LDK perhaps smaller rented by the company he works for), initially they scour his drugs cabinet in search of substitutes for their prescribed medicines, in an attempt to keep their side effects at bay, they visit an ATM where Nagoyan takes out a large sum of money, and then using his car they take to the road. As they travel larger portions of Hana's past is revealed, her ex boyfriend who dumps her after learning of her mental health problems, and the pair contemplate their punishment of 'private rooms', (locked rooms), if they are caught. The description of their route is detailed enough that if you wanted to you could follow the route they take via Internet mapping, through Kunisaki, the memorial museum for Yukichi Fukuzawa, passing the volcanic Mount Aso and later Sakurajima, to name but a few of the locations. There is no particular predetermined destination in mind, it becomes apparent that they are leaving their past lives behind, although near the end of the novella they begin to realize that the people they see are still living out these very lives that they feel they have escaped from, Nagoyan observes that they will no doubt at some point return to their former lives. The dimensions of their escape although large for them remains uncertain, as after they've been on the road for a while Nagoyan observes that the date of his proposed release arrives and then passes.

 

The relationship between Hana and Nagoyan remains platonic through the novel although on one occasion Hana contemplates the relationship becoming physical with Nagoyan, but on the whole Hana takes almost every opportunity to goad him about his attempts at covering his provincial background and desire to make it in Tokyo. Obviously the novel is looking at what we regard as being mental health or perhaps what constitutes mental abnormality, much of this is read in Hana's introspective reflections on her self and condition, at one point a series of voices and faces that she recognises but cannot name threaten to swap her thinking, looking back on her self  she observes - 'The delusory had a greater sense of reality, so that the real and unreal became indistinguishable'. Some of these reflections Hana mingles with the lyrics of songs by a punk band played on Nagoyan's cassette player. In another instance after an act of kleptomania Nagoyan throws an empty bottle of rum watching it smash he reflects on himself - 'I wish I could go to pieces in the same way', the overall feeling of the novella is the display that its a fine, perhaps fragile, line between the two. The purpose of the escape begins to take on a tangible purpose when Nagoyan proposes to find lavender which is known for its soothing aroma. At the beginning of the novel Hana describes her hatred of a certain drug used on patients that has diverse side effects which could be viewed as a comment on the treatment of mental health patients, which the novel is perhaps making in a broader context, although this message is not too explicit. 

 

The narrative is punctuated in a couple of incidences by slightly surreal happenings taking the novella to a temporarily different dimension, this is a thoroughly contemporary tale, which is at times is refreshingly irreverent, and provoking.        

 

   

 

In Pursuit of Lavender at Anthem Press