'Convenience Store Woman' and the art of translation w/ Ginny Tapley Takemori

Episode 67,   Oct 08, 2020, 10:00 AM

Ginny Tapley Takemori discusses the process of translating Japanese literature into English — an art that’s brought us the books of Japanese authors such as Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami and more recently a slew of new Japanese writers, particularly younger women such as Sayaka Murata and Mieko Kawakami.

Ginny Tapley Takemori is probably best known for her 2018 translation of "Convenience Store Woman," the bestselling novel by Sayaka Murata, which won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize when it was first published in Japanese in 2016. Like the original, the English translation was a bestseller, and the author and translator have collaborated again to translate Murata’s 11th novel, "Earthlings," which was published at the beginning of October. We hear from Ginny about the art of translation and why she thinks we should all be reading more books from other cultures.

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Ginny Tapley Takemori: Author profile
Oscar Boyd: Twitter | Articles | Instagram

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Photo: Sayaka Murata's "Convenience Store Women"