Recreating Worlds
All fiction, whether realist or fantasy, genre or literary, creates a world for readers to immerse themselves in. Our job as translator is to assess how the author has created this fictional realm, what qualities s/he has given it, what techniques s/he has used, and decide how we can best recreate it in another language: we must become a shadow novelist. How do we go about finding an appropriate narrative voice? What are the main elements at play in the story, and in the author’s treatment of it? What makes this word better than another? How can you name imaginary beings? When is it justifiable, necessary even, to stray from the original? How to deal with references to and quotations from other works? What about dialogue? When, if ever, should you use footnotes (or endnotes)? These are the kinds of issues Ginny Tapley Takemori will discuss, drawing on various examples from works she has translated.
(This seminar will be held in English.)
Speaker Profile
Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated fiction by more than a dozen early modern and contemporary Japanese authors. Her book translations include Puppet Master by Miyuki Miyabe, From the Fatherland with Love by Ryu Murakami, co-translated with Ralph McCarthy and Charles De Wolf, and The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories by Kyotaro Nishimura, as well as two children’s books, The Secret of the Blue Glass by Tomiko Inui and The Whale That Fell In Love With a Submarine by Akiyuki Nosaka. Her short fiction translations have appeared in Granta, Words Without Borders, and a number of anthologies, and she has also translated nonfiction works on the visual and performing arts. She previously worked as an editor of translated fiction, nonfiction, and illustrated books at Kodansha International, and in Spain as a foreign rights literary agent and freelance translator from Spanish and Catalan.
Date: Saturday, November 21, 2015
Time: 14:00-17:00
Doors open: 13.30
Place: Forum 8, Shibuya (http://www.forum-8.co.jp/access/index.html)
Address: Dogenzaka 2-10-7, Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0043; Phone: 03-3780-0008
Cost: JAT members 1,000 yen; non-members 3,000 yen (advance registration is NOT necessary)
Koryukai: Please email us at [email protected] by the end of Wednesday, November 11, JST, if you want to join a fixed-price networking dinner following the seminar. Details will be confirmed separately.
Inquiries: [email protected]
