Putting Together a New Anthology: Book Launch Event for the Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories

On October 19, 2018, Waseda University celebrated the publication of the anthology The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories by inviting its editor Jay Rubin (Professor Emeritus at Harvard University), scholar and translator of Japanese literature, and Motoyuki Shibata (Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo), scholar and translator of American literature. The two professors had a stimulating conversation concerning the process of putting together the anthology, several short stories from the book, and the joys and challenges of translation. The conversation was accented by lively readings of selected works from the collection. This event, sponsored by the Global Japanese Studies Model Unit of the Top Global University Project, was well attended by both the Waseda community and the general public.

Rubin began the conversation by describing his anthology as a compilation of what he considers excellent stories worth sharing. Together with Shibata, they discussed at length Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s story “The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga” (tr. Paul Warham), in which the protagonist switches between a Western and a Japanese personality. They emphasized the comic effect of this by reading in both English and Japanese two passages from the text, where the main character criticizes the two cultures in an exaggerated and performative fashion. The story perfectly captures the conflicting feelings toward Japanese and Western cultures that became a prevalent theme in modern Japanese literature.

Next, Shibata highlighted the strong presence of women writers in the anthology. Agreeing with this statement, Rubin added that he was not consciously trying to create a gender balance of the authors included but it had turned out that way. The editor of the anthology expressed his emphatic admiration for Ōba Minako’s short story, “The Smile of the Mountain Witch” (tr. Noriko Mizuta), which resurrects and re-signifies the legend of yamanba, a yōkai who used to ensnare mountain travelers, in modern times. Shibata then discussed Ōta Yōko’s story, “Hiroshima, City of Doom” (tr. Richard Minear), noting the objectivity of the narration and its lack of sentimentality which produces a powerful reading experience. Rubin followed by digging deeply into Atomic Bomb literature (genbaku bungaku) and on the censorship of the American Occupation, a topic he had previously explored in the last part of his monograph Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the Meiji State. He recalled that he had long avoided dealing with Atomic Bomb literature, perhaps due to a sense of guilt for what Americans did to the Japanese during the bombings. Rubin ended this section by discussing Nosaka Akiyuki’s story, “American Hijiki” (tr. Jay Rubin), which deals with the same period but from a completely different point of view, consciously evading seriousness.

Next, Rubin and Shibata discussed some issues around the practice of translation and specifically the difficulty of translating dialects, quoting cases from Ōe Kenzaburō to Mori Ōgai. This led them to analyze the case of Uno Kōji’s story “Closet LLB” (tr. Jay Rubin). They performed a bilingual reading of a fragment of the text, which made it clear that the Japanese version was substantially shorter than the one in English. The passage described the protagonist’s way of sleeping and included culturally specific words used in Japanese for bedclothes and furniture, such as oshiire. Both translators agreed that it was necessary to modify the original text to better suit the readers’ understanding in the target language, while also keeping the text’s stylistic balance. “Translators should reflect the impressions they get from the original”, concluded Rubin.

In the Q&A portion of the event, Rubin and Shibata answered many questions from the audience. One student asked Rubin how he came to discover the contemporary Japanese writers included in the anthology, to which he answered that it had been thanks to Shibata and to the literary magazine he edits, Monkey Business: New Writing From Japan. Another student asked if there were other stories Rubin wanted to include in the anthology but could not. Rubin answered that there was none for this current anthology, but, in 2005, when he originally translated “Ipanema” (Haruki Murakami’s story included in the book), he could not get the translation rights for the Brazilian song that is quoted in the text. He was happy, therefore, to finally be able to present said translation to English readers. When asked what impact he thought his anthology would have, Rubin answered that he has always been motivated by the same goal for the past fifty years: to generate interest in Japanese literature among Western readers. He also discussed Uchida Hyakken’s story “Kudan” (tr. Rachel DiNitto), and the similarity of the author’s style with Kafka’s. As a closing remark, Hitomi Yoshio, translator of Kawakami Mieko’s story included in the anthology, “Dreams of Love, Etc.”, raised the topic of translation once again, asking the speakers for their opinions on how to make a translation sound natural. Rubin answered that the main thing he keeps in mind is to find equivalents without overprioritizing the original. As for Shibata, he explained that there are many forms of mistranslation aside from lexical or grammatical mistranslation, such as being unable to transmit the tone of a narration, and that is why it is important to consider the text as a whole, including tone and dialect. They concluded with the statement, “There is no perfect translation, only approximations. We can only hope to get across as much as possible and in as natural a way as possible.”

【Event Overview】

Date and Time：October 19 (Fri.), 2018, 2:45pm-4:25pm

Location：Conference Room #1, Building 33, Waseda University

Sponsored by：Global Japanese Studies Model Unit, Waseda University Top Global University Project

Co-sponsored by：Waseda University Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Ryusaku Tsunoda Center of Japanese Culture, Transdisciplinary Research for Creative Writing and Translation

Speakers：Jay Rubin (Emeritus Professor of Harvard University), Motoyuki Shibata(Emeritus Professor at Tokyo University）

Moderator：Hitomi Yoshio (Associate Professor of Waseda University), David Karashima (Associate Professor of Waseda University)