Ginny Tapley Takemori: “Japanese lends itself to ambiguity”
At the Alliance Literature Festival in Bengaluru, the winner of the Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize (2020-2021) spoke about literary activism and the nuances of Japanese to English translation
Where did you grow up and how and when did you take up Japanese translation; how did you come to live in rural Japan?
I grew up in the UK, but I was born in a different country. I delved into different languages at school. I was working in Barcelona for a literary agent and I met lots of Japanese people there and that’s when I started getting interested in Japan and its literature. I was always fascinated about learning a language that had a different writing system. I decided to leave my job and go and study Japanese at SOAS, London University. I spent four years working really hard to learn the language, and after that I moved to Tokyo to work for a Japanese publisher. I was there for four years but in the meantime, I met my future husband and I ended up moving into the town where he lives.
How do you maintain an author’s distinct voice and style? For example, how is translating Sayaka Murata, who dives into dystopian fiction, different from translating Kyoko Nakajima, who writes about Japanese society?
When you read a book, as a translator, you really have to listen to the author’s voice and that’s what I try to do. The narrative voice is the most important part of a book; it determines everything – how you understand it, how you see the characters, how well you understand them. It has to go through the five senses – visual descriptions, sounds, taste, the sensation of touch, etc. I pay attention to all of this. How the author uses words is also important.
For example, Sayaka Murata has a very particular way of expressing herself; she uses words that are surprising to the context in Japanese, so my job is to keep that intact in English, deliberately. Kyoko Nakajima, on the other hand, loves wordplay, which is quite challenging.
Sayaka’s sense of humour is the type that makes you spit out your coffee whereas Kyoko’s sense of humour is gentle. Therefore, as a translator and as a reader, you have to be very sensitive to be able to hear all of these nuances, and try to find a way to get that across.
How has literary translation evolved, over the years?
There is a lot more training now for literary translators. We’ve become much more professional. There are numerous centres that are excellent for aspiring translators — the British Centre for Literary Translation workshops and Bristol Translates, for example. Doing workshops with other translators gives you confidence, it helps you explore the boundaries of translation, what you can do, how much you can play with it; especially when you see how other translators deal with the same piece. These workshops also help educate you about the business. Training of translators and professionalisation of the industry is an ongoing situation, and it’s getting better.
What is your view about translators being activists?
If there’s something that I find really offensive, there’s no way I am going to spend my time and energy immersing myself to reproduce that work in a literary translation. I have turned down books that don’t align with my politics. Fortunately, I am in a position where I can turn down work if I don’t like it.
Beyond that, translators often work hard to change aspects of the business, like advocating for better conditions and pay, and also to redress issues we see in publishing business. For example, around a decade ago, many translators from all languages started commenting on how few works by women authors were being translated into English, and that this did not reflect the publishing reality in other countries. I and a couple of colleagues (Allison Markin Powell and Lucy North), did a bit of research and realised that only about 25% of works being translated into English from Japanese were by women authors, while, in Japan, there was roughly parity in authors winning the big literary prizes and heading bestseller lists. So, we formed our collective, Strong Women Soft Power, to try to do something about this. We published a list of 10 works by Japanese women authors we would like to see published in English on LitHub; we organised a day-long symposium in Tokyo, attended by around 100 translators, academics, editors and agents, to discuss the issues; and we collaborated with the Japan Foundation New York to curate a series of online events featuring Japanese Women Authors and their translators. Translators working in other languages are doing similar things, too.
Which have been your most rewarding translation projects?
I would have to say that translating Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman was really rewarding, mainly because it has been such a huge success, and also because I worked so closely with her. Despite what you might imagine from her books, Sayaka is extremely lovely, kind, helpful and patient.
How did you navigate the cultural element of the Japanese convenience store in Sayaka Murata’s book?
In the original Japanese of the Convenience Store Woman, the opening line translates literally as, “a convenience store is filled with sound”. I changed that to “a convenience store is a world of sound”, which indicated to the reader that they were entering a specific world. This was important because when the novel came out, people outside of Japan were not familiar with the concept of a convenience store, so it was important for me to get that across that this place is a unique space, a different world.
Sayaka also kept repeating the word “sound” in the first paragraph — the sound of this, the sound of that. I didn’t use that repetition, instead I used “the beep of the bar code scanners”, the “clacking of heels” and so forth, to try and add life to the ambience of the store and to emphasize that it is a world of its own.
What are the most challenging aspects of translating from Japanese to English?
Japanese is as about as different from English as it’s possible to be. The writing system has two phonetic syllabaries each consisting of about 47 basic letters plus thousands of kanji characters, and these can be used in ways that add layers of nuance. We only have one alphabet of 26 letters in English. Japanese has multiple personal pronouns (I can think of well over 10 words for “I” and also for “you” off the top of my head), each of which tells you something about the person and their relationship with the people around them – and often they don’t use a pronoun at all! In English, we only have “I,” “we,” and “you” – and we have to use them. Japanese has a complex system of honorific and humble language that doesn’t exist in English, and the tone of speech can be very different between men and women. Japanese lends itself to ambiguity, which authors use a lot, but in English we have to pin things down. For example, it is easy to obscure the gender of a character quite naturally in Japanese, but it is all but impossible in English as we have to specify him/her etc.
What strategies do you use when translating cultural elements that might be unfamiliar to English-speaking readers?
This really depends. I might leave a word in Japanese without any explanation. For example, in Convenience Store Woman, I left “irasshaimase” and I think that was a good call. On the whole, I feel that as long as the reader can understand the story without any added explanation, then best left alone. Sometimes, some kind of explanation might be necessary for the reader to understand the story; then I try to be as unobtrusive as possible. I work mostly with trade fiction so I prefer to avoid footnotes. But I have on occasion used them such as in anthologies where the editor has specifically said to use footnotes.
How has your approach to translation changed over the course of your career?
I think I have become more confident in my choices, and a better translator overall. I have been very interested in various discussions around translation and translation theory, and this has affected how I work. For example, I now avoid using italics for words that I keep in Japanese as I agree that this is foreignizing. I never really liked the practice so I’m happy to ditch it! I think I have probably become more sensitive to the original language and not making my translations too smooth. It’s always tricky finding a balance between making your translation readable and allowing the original voice to come through, but I think (hope!) I have become better at it.
What role do you think translators play in the cultural exchange between Japan and English-speaking countries?
I have always felt that reading literary works from other cultures is a great way to get to know them and to expand your own world. Often, we translators are responsible for bringing particular authors and literary works that we like to the attention of editors and agents abroad. Just through the act of translation we make these works available to people who would otherwise be unable to read them. But we often do more than just translate, and are sometimes activists, event organisers, literary critics and more!
What common misconceptions do people have about literary translation?
I just read a great article by the literary translator from French, Ros Schwartz, that had the title How long will it take you to type this in English? The idea that translation is simply “typing in another language” reflects a common misperception that translation is merely transposing words on the page, whereas in fact it is a far more complex process as we have to dive deep into the original text, analyse what the author is doing, and find a way to recreate the narrative voice with all its varied nuances and allusions into a compelling read in the target language. Another great article I read recently was Translation-adjacent by Kotryna Garanasvili on Words Without Borders, in which she conducted an informal survey presenting participants with a long list of activities and asking them who they thought would be more likely to do them, a translator or someone else. Actually, translators do all the activities on the list, but this was picked up on by only about 20% of participants.
What trends do you observe in the Japanese works being translated into English?
One trend in recent years has been more women authors making it into English, thanks to translator activism. Even more recent is the boom in so-called “cosy” and “healing” books, often featuring cats, food, libraries and coffee. If it gets more people reading translated fiction, though, it’s all good!
Arunima Mazumdar is an independent writer. She is @sermoninstone on Twitter and @sermonsinstone on Instagram.