In light of my post about translation this past weekend, I wanted to have a brief discussion about an interesting article concerning translations of works by Natsume Soseki, one of the most famous and admired Japanese writers of all time. As you may (or may not!) know, Soseki lived in Kumamoto for several years in the late 1890s, where he worked as a teacher before the beginning of his literary career. Soseki taught at the Fifth High School (第五高等学校), a school which later combined with other schools in the area to become Kumamoto University. In fact, part of the old Fifth High School still stands on the Kumamoto University campus and now serves as a museum. You can learn more about the building here:
http://ewww.kumamoto-u.ac.jp/dept/fifth/
If you’re in Kumamoto or planning a visit, I would definitely recommend stopping by to see it!
This article about the recent first English translation of Soseki’s “Nowaki” raises a very interesting topic concerning translation, this being the fact that there is a hierarchy of perceived importance among works by even the most famous authors. Just because an author is well known, much loved, and/or the focus of academic research and interest does not necessarily mean that all of that author’s works will be published in translation. I find it fascinating that an English translation of one of Soseki’s works, no matter how minor it is considered to be, was only published last year, in spite of the fact that his most famous works have been translated many times and into many languages. It just goes to show that the world of translation can be a very complicated one and that all sorts of factors determine what gets translated and what doesn’t.
Anyway, this has ended up being a longer post than I intended, but I had a lot to say and could ramble on about this sort of thing forever! I hope you enjoy the article and visit the old Fifth High School building if you haven’t done so already.
-Grace
