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The International Translation
Competition in Shizuoka： Interviews with a judge and winners
JAT Bulletin 181, April 2000. Publications Committee
「しずおか世界翻訳コンクール」は、我が国の優れた文学を世界の人々に親しんでもらうとともに、国際相互理解を進めることを目的とした、日本文学の翻訳コンクールです。主催は、静岡県、静岡県教育委員会、伊豆文学フェスティバル実行委員会で、外務省、国際交流基金、（財）自治体国際化協会さらに文化庁の後援を受けています。第１回は１９９６年、第２回は１９９８年に開催され、今回の第３回目は、２０００年１２月５日が締め切りとなっています。 コンクールの詳細は、
http://www1.sphere.ne.jp/shizuoka/Translate/index.html
をご覧下さい。課題作品のなかには小説か否かでJAT-listでも話題となった須賀敦子氏の「ガッティの背中」（白水社刊『ミラノ
霧の風景』から）も含まれています。
今回、JAT Publications CommitteeのJudy
Wakabayashiが、審査員のひとりジャニーン・バイチマン大東文化大学教授、第１回コンクールの最優秀賞受賞者イアン・マクドナルド氏、第２回の最優秀賞受賞者ロバート・ティアニー氏および優秀賞受賞のエイプリル・グレンとディデビット・シラノスキーの両氏にインタビューしました。コンクールへの応募を考えている方々、あるいはチャンスがあったら応募したかったなあ、と考えている方々の参考になれば幸いです。
Professor Janine Beichmann (Member of the judging panel)
What was the motivation behind starting this
competition?
As the webpage (http://www1.sphere.ne.jp/shizuoka) says, "To
encourage appreciation of Japanese literature throughout the
world and to promote international understanding." Many
famous writers, including the Nobel Prize winner Kawabata
Yasunari and Inoue Yasushi, were born in Shizuoka's Izu area.
So for Shizuoka Prefecture to help make Japanese culture
better known through literature is natural.
How many people sent in entries for the Japanese-English
section of the 1998-1999 competition?
Last time, there were only 18 entrants in the English
section. The executive committee of the competition went to
Britain, Germany, Switzerland, the U.S. and Canada recently
in order to promote the competition and ensure that they have
more applicants for the current competition.
Are most of the entrants students of Japanese or people
who already translate professionally?
About half are students, and half are professional teachers
and translators. However, those who have had a translation
published commercially are ineligible. Having published in,
for example, 大学紀要, that is, the journal of one's own
university, would be okay, but having published a literary
translation through a commercial publisher, like Kodansha
International, would not be. If in doubt, I recommend asking
the executive committee, whose email address is given on the
webpage.
What are the judges' criteria in choosing the
winning translations?
Accurate understanding of the Japanese and excellence of
literary style.
What do the winners do in Shizuoka for the year after
they win the award? Do they attend formal classes in
translation, or study whatever subjects they wish?
They study whatever subjects they like.
Are the winning entries published (apart from in the
Shizuoka booklet) or are the winners introduced to publishers
at all?
Neither, for the time being. If this happens, it will not be
until the contest has been held another five or six times.
But they do try to advertise both the contest itself and the
winning translators on the webpage.
Do entrants receive any feedback on their
translations?
No, except for the prize-winnning translators, about whom
the judges are asked to comment briefly.
Ian McDonald (Winner of the Grand Prize,
1997)
Had you studied Japanese literature formally before you
entered the competition?
Yes, I had completed several years of course work on the
undergraduate and graduate levels. I did a minor in East
Asian Studies in college (Wesleyan University, 1990), where I
studied 4 years of Japanese language and had my first
introduction to modern Japanese literature in translation (my
college thesis included my own translation of a Mishima short
story). After teaching English in Japan from '90 to '93, I
entered Stanford's M.A./Ph.D. in Asian Languages to study
modern Japanese literature. I entered the translation
competition in 1996 after writing my M.A. thesis on the work
of Kurahashi Yumiko, with a translation of
『倉橋由美子の怪奇掌編』 (Kurahashi Yumiko's Tales of the
Grotesque).
What were your reasons for choosing the particular
passages you ended up translating?
First, I chose Izumi Kyoka's (泉鏡花) short story over the
other fiction pieces (both by writers unknown to me) because
I had once read a collection of his stories in English by
Charles Inouye (a professor of mine at Wesleyan) and one
story in Japanese, 「外科室」 (The Operating Room). Second,
because the Kyokawas clearly the most difficult of the three
pieces to translate, I surmised that few of the other
contestants in the competition would be likely to chose it.
As it turned out, only a handful of the 100 or so contestants
in French and English did so, and both of the first prizes
went to translations of this story. As for the non-fiction
category, I also chose the piece (by Ito Sei 伊藤整) that
seemed most interesting and challenging to me.
What were some of the particular challenges you faced in
translating these passages?
The Kyoka story was essentially a narrative without a plot,
like a diary. The first two-thirds of the story describes the
narrator's observations of a family of sparrows living in his
backyard and contains almost no dialogue. This descriptive
style was often vague, it seemed to me, because the sentences
were fragmentary, the vocabulary was slightly archaic, the
subject of the sentence was not always clear, and the
narrative switched from one topic to another very suddenly.
The last third was more like a typical story with dialogue
and action, but even here some of the same problems of
clarity persisted. Moreover, the story took such a bizarre
turn (in a Kyoka-esque way) at the end that I began to doubt
my understanding of the Japanese. There were also many plant
and bird names mentioned for which it was hard to find
English equivalents, as well as a few literary allusions and
quotations in classical Japanese.
How much time did you spend on preparing your
translations? Did you concentrate intensively for a short
period, or spread the translating out over a long period,
coming back repeatedly to polish your drafts further?
It took me about six months from start to finish. The first
(very rough) draft took a couple of months, and then I put it
aside for a while. About three months before the deadline, I
went back to it and started looking up obscure points (for
this it helped being at a major research institution like
Stanford) and revising it gradually. In the final stage, I
had various people read it (my professor, friends, and
relatives) and asked for their comments.
Did you find your year at a university in Shizuoka
directly useful in terms of your future as a
translator?
Yes. Although I had spent a total of 4 years in Japan
before, all of which I felt had improved my skills and
confidence as a translator, I had never had to rely on my
Japanese as much as when I studied at Shizuoka University.
The academic environment, in which I took graduate and
undergraduate level classes, forced me to read, write, and
think in Japanese much more than ever before. In addition to
courses in Japanese literature, I also studied with a
professor (Shigematsu Soiku) who taught English-Japanese
translation, and our meetings helped me to develop a greater
sensitivity for the Japanese language. As a result, I do feel
that I am better equipped now to do translations in the
future.
Did you have much chance to speak with the judges while
in Japan? Did they have any helpful tips to pass on about
translating or gaining work as a literary
translator?
This was one area where I was somewhat disappointed. Apart
from the judges' spoken and written comments during the
awards ceremony, I had little direct contact or feedback from
them. There were three official/ceremonial occasions during
which I was able to meet the judges, but the schedule was so
demanding (speeches, receptions, etc.) that we had little
opportunity for informal conversation. I would have liked, at
some point during the year, to have met with the judges
solely for the purpose of exchanging ideas about translation,
but this was not possible to arrange. On the other hand, I
had much more contact with the other prizewinners (from both
the 1st and 2nd competitions) and it was very helpful and
encouraging to find out what other aspiring translators were
doing.
Has winning the award inspired you to move into the
field of literary translation?
It has given me a good idea of how daunting, but also how
rewarding, the task of literary translation is. I would
definitely like to work on more literary translation in the
future, and in fact I am doing so as part of my Ph.D.
dissertation project. However, I enjoy all kinds of
translation, even non-literary, and outside of academia it
seems there still is not much demand for translated Japanese
literature.
What did you learn or gain from the whole
experience?
Never having won any sort of prize in my life, this was
certainly a new and extremely positive experience for me. On
top of that, I have wanted to be a translator almost since I
first began studying Japanese 13 years ago. On one hand, I
feel that I have gained a sense that it is worth pursuing
what one is most interested in and most enjoys doing. On the
other hand, I also realized that there was a certain amount
of luck in my winning, and that there are a lot of other
talented, aspiring translators out there.
I understand that you are currently doing a Ph.D. at
Stanford University. Is your dissertation topic related to
translation or Japanese literature in any way?
My dissertation topic concerns Japanese literary parody,
specifically poetic parody from the Edo period. One reason I
chose this project, in addition to having a strong interest
in parody, is so that I could make translation part of it.
Not only do I intend to translate a large number of poems,
but I believe that parody itself is in some ways just another
form of translation.
What tips would you give to translators who are thinking
of submitting an entry to this competition?
Well, most obviously, start early and revise often. And
definitely, get others to read your translation and don't be
averse to making changes based on their advice (though
ultimately the translation reflects your choices and
aesthetic decisions). Of course, choose a piece that you can
enjoy translating, but given that this competition has a
decidedly academic slant, consider how a certain piece might
make a stronger impression on the judges or show off your
translation abilities most favorably. This doesn't mean that
you have to attach scholarly footnotes to your translation:
though some contestants in the 1st and 2nd competitions did,
I avoided using any.
Robert Tierney (Winner of the Grand Prize,
1999)
Had you studied Japanese literature formally before you
entered the competition?
Prior to entering this competition, I studied for three
years in a Ph.D. program in Japanese Literature at Stanford
University. I worked on the translations primarily during the
first quarter of my third year of study. At Stanford, I took
a wide variety of courses in modern and pre-modern Japanese
literature, three years of Chinese language, as well as
courses in Japanese history, religion and anthropology.
What were your reasons for choosing the particular
passages you ended up translating?
I chose to translate the two short stories by Nakajima
Atsushi （中島敦）because I liked his work and had done some
research on the travel works and stories he wrote after
working in Micronesia (then a Japanese colony). I had not
previously come across the two stories by Nakajima that were
included in the booklet for the Shizuoka Competition. I also
selected the essay by Maruya Saiichi （丸谷才一） because I
considered him to be an excellent stylist and wanted to work
on a topic dealing with history/politics.
What were some of the particular challenges you faced in
translating these passages?
The stories by Nakajima were both set in ancient China. In
order to produce a faithful translation, I had to familiarize
myself with the historical materials on which Nakajima had
based his work, particularly The Tso Chuan. In these Chinese
stories, Nakajima wrote in a style that resembled classical
Chinese, extremely dense, elliptical and concise. To render
this style into English, I had to draw out and set down
explicitly many things that are just barely hinted at in the
text in order for it to make any sense.
I faced problems of a different sort with Maruya's essay.
Like many zuihitsu（随筆） writers, Maruya wrote quite long
and complex sentences that sometimes needed to be completely
rethought and divided in an English translation. He also
incorporated long quotations from other works (passages from
the Meiji Constitution,, a long citation from a historical
work, even the first few lines of Genji Monogatari 源氏物語.
I had to spend a lot of time working on these passages to
suggest the variety of styles that Maruya had employed in his
essay.
How much time did you spend on preparing your
translations? Did you concentrate intensively for a short
period, or spread the translating out over a long period,
coming back repeatedly to polish your drafts
further?
I worked fairly intensively over a period of three months
from late September to about mid-December, spending a couple
of hours each day on the translation. At first, I tried to
produce a rough draft of the work that was as close to the
original as possible; then I put it aside for a period of
time. After a few weeks went by, I picked up my drafts again
and concentrated on polishing my own English text to make it
read more naturally. I did this again and again. Once I had
some confidence that my work was approaching completion, I
also requested other students at Stanford to read my
translation and give me feedback. I also rechecked my
translation against the original a couple of times and was
amazed at some of the careless errors or omissions I had
inadvertently made.
Have you found your time at a university in Shizuoka
directly useful in terms of your future as a
translator?
I have not yet studied at a University in Shizuoka but plan
to do so from the coming fall.
Did you have much chance to speak with the judges when
you accepted the award? Did they have any helpful tips to
pass on about translating or gaining work as a literary
translator?
Unfortunately, I had relatively little chance to speak to
the judges about translating or a career in
translating.
Has winning the award inspired you to move into the
field of literary translation?
Since winning an award, I have been working on translations
of several works by Nakajima Atsushi that have not yet been
published in English. I hope to be able to publish a
collection of his stories eventually.
What did you learn or gain from the whole
experience?
I learned that 90% of my work as a translator of literature
is developing the ability to write clearly and naturally in
my own language.
What tips would you give to translators who are thinking
of submitting an entry to this competition?
Based on my own experience, I would suggest that translators
ask their friends to read their submission for constructive
criticism during the draft stage. I would also suggest that
they put the translation aside if they think they are coming
up against a wall (a solution will probably occur to them
with the passage of time).
April Glenday (Distinguished Translation Award,
1999)
What were your reasons for choosing the particular
passages you ended up translating?
The story was an easy choice since one of the three options
particularly appealed to me. Deciding which essay to
translate was harder because two of them included lengthy
quotations-from the Japanese constitution on the one hand,
and from French philosophers on the other. If it were a job
for a client, there'd be no question but to track down an
existing English translation. But since this was a
competition, with the same selection of texts in the
Japanese-to-Chinese division, I felt unsure what was
expected. By default, I chose the third essay option,
although it was the most obscure.
What were some of the particular challenges you faced in
translating these passages?
In regard to the story, the first stumbling block was the
scene-setting description at the beginning, a sequence of
long and involved sentences with rhetorical flourishes. My
attempts at translation all seemed mannered and wordy, quite
exasperating to my inner modern reader. All the same, it took
a long time to trim the English and eventually to decide to
break up the long sentences. This opening passage was where I
most felt that I was making a compromise.
Another challenge was what to call the main character who is
known only by nickname [大器晩成先生], a name that the
story's ending hinges on. I had a working name that I wasn't
very happy with. Later I tried a more oblique interpretation
[Mr Prospect] and it seemed to work well. Thinking about and
deciding on that key name helped to unlock the story in my
imagination, making the process of translation more certain
and the protagonist my own character.
Translating the essay, though, was a slow and painful
process. It was a post-war piece, part of an intellectual
debate about individual responsibility and state power,
written in an epigrammatic and discursive style. I often felt
out of my depth, having realised that this essay, which I'd
chosen because it didn't have any quotes except for a
familiar one from the Bible, was full of references to German
philosophy and contemporary thought. I was alerted to the
perils ahead when I pondered the essay's subtitle,
"ひとつの反時代的考察". The meaning seemed clear enough, but
how does one translate 反時代的? Strangely, it wasn't in the
Kenkyusha or Kojien. So I ran an Internet search to see how
it's used. And found the problematic adjective invariably
paired with the same noun, 考察, as the Japanese title of a
work by Nietzsche. Naturally, I had no hesitation in echoing
the lovely title of one of the work's English translations,
"Untimely Meditations", in my translation of the essay's
subtitle. This was the start of an anxious foray into
philosophy so as not to miss the author's allusions. The
problem extended to the lexicon of the essay. Abstract nouns
like 思想, 人間, and 政治 are used repeatedly, and I felt
like a literary code-breaker, trying to locate the English
equivalents within the author's sphere of reference.
How much time did you spend on preparing your
translations? Did you concentrate intensively for a short
period, or spread the translating out over a long period,
coming back repeatedly to polish your drafts further?
I spent a long time, much of it in avoidance behaviour. I
actually told my clients-all but one that sends regular small
jobs-that I was unavailable for six weeks. So there could be
no excuse not to finish the task, however much time I might
waste. I tend to be a slow translator; I can't easily move on
unless I have the present paragraph in good shape. This meant
that I often got stuck. I scribbled on paper, went for long
cogitative walks, and sat at the computer only to type up
what I'd largely worked out. I sometimes backtracked and
finessed the word choice, but didn't do any major editing
until the drafts were typed. At that stage, I had a family
member read and criticise the drafts, which was very
helpful.
One of the texts you translated (the one by Kouda Rohan
幸田露伴） was quite an old text, containing several old
kanji and words that are not easily 'findable'. Did you find
that the age of the text made it particularly difficult to
translate? And did you deliberately try to give your
translation an 'old' feel or did you decide to translate it
into contemporary language (as Kouda's original text was
written in the contemporary language of his time)?
Several people commented that the Kouda Rohan story was
difficult, yet I found it very accessible. It was set in the
late nineteenth century, but was written in 1925, the same
year as "Mrs Dalloway", for instance. The author's erudition
is apparent, but his writing is deft and vivid. Without
giving it any great thought, I read Virginia Woolf at the
time and let her writing act as a matrix in which to set the
tone and language of my translation.
Did you find the visit to Japan to receive your award
was useful in terms of your future as a translator?
The trip was exciting. It was a thrill to hear Donald Keene
and to spend time with the American and Chinese translators.
I was glad to make the trip, but it hasn't opened any
doors.
Did you have much chance to speak with the judges while
in Japan? Did they have any helpful tips to pass on about
translating or gaining work as a literary translator?
There was an hour-long reception, attended by the judges,
planning committee, and many guests, which took place at the
end of a long day of speeches and panel discussions. It was
only possible to exchange a few words with the judges, but I
felt encouraged to have that opportunity.
I understand that you work as a technical and 'general'
translator. Has winning the award inspired you to branch out
into the field of literary translation?
The competition was a personal challenge, a chance to try my
hand at something I've always said I'll do "when I retire".
Literary translation doesn't pay the bills, of course. Also,
I don't know what I should be reading, or what might be worth
translating, which is a real difficulty. I don't see the
award as a stepping-stone, exactly, but I'll probably have
another go at translating Japanese fiction some day.
What did you learn or gain from the whole
experience?
The fact that the competition is open to people of any age,
gender, or nationality is remarkable. It was inspiring to
participate on those terms. I guess I gained self-esteem and
especially enjoyed meeting some of the other winners.
What tips would you give to translators who are thinking
of submitting an entry to this competition?
I can't give any tips exactly. I can only say from my own
experience that it was hard work and took some commitment.
The first prize of a whole year in Japan to study and
translate is very attractive. I think that experienced
translators have a good chance.
David Cyranoski (Distinguished Translation Award,
1999)
Had you studied Japanese literature formally before you
entered the competition?
I originally studied on my own while living in Japan. Back
in the US, I spent a couple semesters studying at university
level. After that I went to the Inter-University Center for
Japanese Language Study in Yokohama.
Sorry, I just realized the question was about literature,
not language. No, I have never studied formally. I have
studied non-Japanese literature before, and I have read quite
a bit of Japanese literature on my own.
What were your reasons for choosing the particular
passages you ended up translating?
I chose the Kaiko （開高健） piece because it included some
variety in the writing style-dialogue and descriptive
writing-and I liked the article. The Fukuda（福田恆存） essay
I chose because I thought it would be most challenging and
because I have some interest in the topic (I am a modern
Japanese intellectual history PhD. student.)
What were some of the particular challenges you faced in
translating these passages?
Dealing with tense, which is not always clear in the
original, presented some problems. The Fukuda piece also had
quite long sentences that really had to be broken up to have
any kind of coherence in English. It was also quite
repetitive at times, and thus it was necessary to decide
which repetitions added something stylistically and which
would merely bore the reader. I also am quite indecisive, and
it was quite difficult to choose one possible translation
over another. Two alternatives would both seem more or less
accurate, but with slightly different nuances. What to do,
what to do? Sometimes I just couldn't make up my mind.
How much time did you spend on preparing your
translations? Did you concentrate intensively for a short
period, or spread the translating out over a long period,
coming back repeatedly to polish your drafts further?
The latter. I started with about 5 months to go, but only
working for a half-hour or an hour before or after work two
or three times a week. Needless to say, this pace picked up
towards the end. I would have preferred to spend longer
periods of time from the beginning but I couldn't find those
chunks.
Has winning an award inspired you to move into the field
of literary translation?
No. I would definitely think about it in the future, and
whatever I do in the meantime will probably require some
translation, but I have not made any decision to focus on
literary translation.
What did you learn or gain from the whole
experience?
I learned to be wary of translations. I learned that there
are probably many alternatives to translations. Now when I
read translations, I often check to see what was written in
the original. It made me a skeptic. But it's also a great way
to learn both languages.
What tips would you give to translators who are thinking
of submitting an entry to this competition?
I think it is best to get through a translation quickly and
then spend a lot more time cleaning it up later. Then your
understanding of the logic of the entire piece will inform
your translation of each particular sentence.
If you have puzzled over a passage for a long time and just
can't figure out how to translate it, come back to it later.
Get some sleep. Try again when your mind is fresh or in a
different state.
Sincere thanks to everyone who was willing to share their
experiences in this competition with JAT Bulletin
readers.