Beyond "trans-border": Translation and Difference in Contemporary Japanese Literature.
In 1988, the Japan Foundation expressed concerns that as a symptom of declining interest in Japan among American readers, sales of Japanese literature in translation were falling. Thirty years later, following the reintroduction of the National Book Awards for Translated Literature in 2018, two titles originally published in Japanese (The Emissary and Tokyo Ueno Station) received the top prize while a third (The Memory Police) reached the shortlist. Amid renewed popular and critical demand for a wide range of literature in English translation, these prominent successes of Japanese fiction have been the cause for much celebration. However, they also invite consideration. How has this change of fortunes been shaped by the specific vicissitudes of contemporary Japanese fiction during the last three decades? What does the case of Japanese fiction reveal about the relationship between world literature and translation? And what about the gaps left by Japanese texts that cannot, or will not, translate?

Co-convenors Juliana Buriticá Alzate, Jenny Guest, Hugh Whittaker
Date: 2 March 2023, 14:00
Venue: Pavilion Room, 4th Floor, Gateway Building, St. Antony's College
Speaker: Dr Vicky Young (Kawashima Associate Professor in Modern Japanese Literature and Culture, University of Cambridge)
Organising department: Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies
Organiser: Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies
Organiser contact email address: administrator@nissan.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Nissan Institute Seminar in Japanese Studies
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Jane Baker