JATBOOK Seminar: How I Keep the Spark in Literature in Translation

Date & Time: Jan. 27, 2025 (Mon.) 7:00~8:30 p.m.

Guest speaker: Akako Daita-san (translator of YA & children’s literature)

Moderator: Yumeko Futaki

Format: Zoom Webinar (not recorded)

JAT members: Free

Non-members: ¥2000

Students: ¥1000

(Registration deadline: Jan. 25, 2025 (Sat.) 11:59 p.m. JST)

Sponsored by: Japan Association of Translators (JAT) Literary translation special interest group (JATBOOK)

For further information or questions, contact JATBOOK at [email protected]

Pre-session questionnaire:

There may not be enough time during the session to respond to all audience questions, but if you have any questions you’d like to ask Daita-san, we encourage you to submit them ahead of time for consideration. (Questionnaire deadline: Jan. 18, 2025 (Sat.))

https://forms.gle/HLPv1mHtRYLt...

Session details:

Akako Daita has firmly established herself as a leading translator of modern YA (young adult) and children’s literature through her fresh and vivacious translations of many books and book series, notably among them The Princess Diaries series. She can also be credited with ‘discovering’ many of said series through her habit of visiting bookstores any time she travels overseas.

In this session, Daita-san will present an overview of her approach to translating a volume of literature, walking up through the concrete steps of the process all the way from her first encounter with the text, the initial reading, pre-translation preparations, points to note during the actual translation process, up through polishing the final product. In addition, she will also touch on her experience as a translation contest judge to provide specific points of advice for current and aspiring literary translators.

This session is meant for not just working literary translators and students of literary translation, but also translators in any field who want an extra reminder dose of just how fun translation can be, so any and all are encouraged to attend!

(Moderated by Yumeko Futaki)

Speaker Bio:

Akako Daita

Translator of YA and children’s literature. Graduate of Rikkyo University’s English & American Literature program. Her works include Yasmin Rahman’s This is My Truth (Watashi no shinjitsu), Thomas Taylor’s The Legends of Eerie-on-Sea series, Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries series, Keith Calabrese’s A Drop of Hope (Kibou no hitoshizuku), and Abie Longstaff’s The Trapdoor Mysteries (Himitsu no chikatoshokan) series, among others.

In addition to her translation work, Daita-san holds monthly morning and evening seminars with the Asahi Culture Center on the topic of The Fun of Translating YA Literature. As the title of the seminars might suggest, Daita-san takes everyone on a deep dive into the enjoyable aspects of working on literary translation for young people, making it a very popular course not just among colleagues and students in literary translation, but also among translators working in technical, audiovisual, and numerous fields of translation.

Moderator Bio:

Yumeko Futaki

Translator and member of JAT’s Board of Directors. Business and IT translator by day, literary translator by night. Her works include Sönke Ahrens’ How to Take Smart Notes (Memo o toreba zaisan ni naru) and Wendy Smith & Marianne Lewis’ Both/And Thinking (Ryouritsu shikou). In addition, Futaki-san is a long-time student of Daita-san’s morning seminar, and co-translated the third book (Thief in the Night, Mayonaka no yuurei?) of the aforementioned Trapdoor Mysteries together with Daita-san.

*Presentation language:

This session will be presented in Japanese. Anyone able to understand spoken Japanese is welcome to attend. Translators translating out of Japanese to another language are more than welcome to join in.

*Important Notice Regarding Ticketing & Registration

JAT members logged in to the website should be able to click on the ¥2000 ticket and see the subtotal/grand total register as ¥0, and complete the registration process to obtain an event ticket for free. If you are logged in to the JAT website and the subtotal shows ¥2000, you have already registered for this event for free. Unfortunately we are unable to have our registration system prevent you from registering twice, so please take care not to pay for a second ticket and duplicate your registration.