Re: translating

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Sun, 17 Oct 1999 12:32:03 -0400

At 10:05 AM -0400 on 10/16/1999, Will wrote:

> I'm just trying to sit on the
> sidelines and root for translation in general.

The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the 
End of the World; The Elephant Vanishes; Dance, Dance, Dance; A Wild 
Sheep Chase) was the translator of (this is from memory, so nobody 
shoot me) Raymond Chandler, John Irving, and, perhaps, Kafka, into 
Japanese.  This experience in translation DEFINITELY flavors his own 
fiction, where there are elements of dark humor, paranoia, and 
hard-boiled detective tones.  Something along the feeling in the 
movie Blade Runner.

I can't speak about the quality of his translation, though it is 
considered quite good, but his fiction is wonderful.

--tim