Haruki Murakami subverts the impression of "Japanese literature"
On September 10, 1990, the American magazine "The New Yorker" published the English version of Haruki Murakami's short story "TV Man". Works written in Japanese were published in American literary magazines, not only showing Haruki Murakami's writing as a writer, but also a cross-era scene in the history of modern and contemporary Japanese literature translations, especially the English version. Subsequently, Murakami's works were translated into more than 50 Chinese, and he won literary awards around the world such as the Franz Kafka Prize and the Jerusalem Literature Prize, and his works have become global best-selling books (it is a special case in Japanese literature), with both critical and commercial success, and he has enjoyed rare honors and presences in the world as a Japanese literary writer.
Since the appearance of Haruki Murakami, it has also subverted the impression of "Japanese literature" in the translation industry. Eduard Farrer, a researcher of Japanese literature, once said that the "golden age of modern Japanese novel translation" in the English circle began in 1955 when the American literary publishing house Knopp published the English version of Ōfjiro Daifō's "Homecoming" and Tanizaki Junichiro's "Eating Indigo". Later, with Junichiro Tanizaki, Yukio Mishima, and Yasunari Kawabata as the center, the reproduction of the United States after World War II with Japanese culture suddenly became a literary trend, and the outside world firmly established the beautiful impression of modern Japanese literature. In contrast, American literature has also been greatly impacted. Murakami's works take modern Japanese society as a stage and depict a world where reality and fantasy intersect, thus subverting the impression of modern Japanese literature in English-speaking circles.
As for Murakami's first entry into the English-speaking world, it is reported that it was thanks to the Japanese publishing house and other strong efforts. And the choice of agents, close collaboration with U.S. editors, "fine-tuning" of text for Readers in english-speaking circles, especially in North America... Each of these links is crucial. In addition, works such as "After Dark" explain the content of "pre-translation" in terms of things that are familiar to Japanese readers before they are translated. Therefore, Haruki Murakami also said that the premise of reading translations is to show readers the heads of writers who symbolize the "era of translated literature".
Light and Shadow – the overwhelming presence of "Murakami"
It has been nearly 30 years since Haruki Murakami first stepped into the English language. It can be said that from 1955 onwards, he set a time of parallel with the golden age of translation of modern Japanese novels by Tanizaki, Mishima, and Kawabata in the 1980s.
As far as reading the translations of Japanese literature, Haruki Murakami's work of one person and an overwhelming sense of existence is "Light and Shadow". Murakami's writing style was influenced by writers such as Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut, and Raymond Carver, so there were few obstacles to the translation of works into European and American, but at the same time as the readership was widespread, there were also many writers and critics who criticized this style and style. In addition, there is a Japanese writer who has been criticized for this, she is a writer who was born in the English circle, skillfully switched between Japan and Britain, and wrote in Japanese - Mizumura Mimi.
Japanese literature researcher and translator Stephen Snyder, after translating the works of Yoko Ogawa and Natsuo Kirino in English, pointed out that modern writers of Japanese literature have never surpassed Haruki Murakami, "Who is the next Murakami?" This sentence caused an uproar in society. (Stephen Snyder "Murakami Effect"/Literary Hub) If writers like Ogawa and Kirino were to be described as "similar to Murakami", their original characteristics would be gone. On the other hand, because of Murakami's presence, other writers who write books in Japanese are also beginning to attract attention, Snette explains. Either way, Murakami has become indispensable in the past 30 years when "you can read modern Japanese literature translations."
The diversity of translations ranges from modern poetry to light novels
In recent years, translations of Japanese literature other than Haruki Murakami have some distinct features.
The first is the diversity of writers. Before the 1980s, most of the writers who translated their works into foreign languages were men, and after the 1990s, female authors such as Yuko Tsushima, Natsuo Kirino, Yoko Ogawa, and the recently emerging Shayaka Murata began to shine. Kirino's OUT (1997, English translation 2004), a work that can be hailed as a thriller, has also won high honors such as the Long Story Award of the Edogawa Harushi Award in the field of speculative fiction, and other works have been translated into his Chinese. There is also Sayaka Murata's "Convenience Store In the World" (2016, English translation 2018), which is the shortest work from translation to publication after completing the Japanese edition.
The translated works are not only pure literature, but also speculative fiction, science fiction, etc., and the variety has become more diverse. In China, both Japanese and foreign literature, the status of the popular author Keigo Higashino has also been established. In addition, in the English translation of modern literature, science fiction novels, or light novels, Haikasoru, a Japanese publisher that publishes works such as Project Ito and Tsurugi Tower, has also made great contributions to being able to read Japanese literature in english circles. Even in the modern poetry world, since it was translated, Ito Hiromi's works have also begun to attract attention.
Translations have won readers from all over the world for those works, followed by light novels as an example. After 1990, manga and anime released in Japan began to attract attention, and the original work novelized manga and anime works into scripts, which is the prototype of light novels. Light novels are mostly long stories, and proprietary vocabulary such as the origin of character settings adds a lot of difficulties to translation, but despite this, light novels can be seen in the English-speaking circle, Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.
It is precisely because of the strong support of these Japanese literature that I hope to do my best to support the translation of literary works. In 2002, the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan proposed to popularize modern literature overseas, and established the Translation Support Project "Modern Japanese Literature Translation and Popularization Project", which includes not only English, but also French, German, Russian, and Indonesian. Since the retranslation of masterpieces of modern Japanese literature such as Natsume Soseki's "The Young Master" and Ryunosuke Wasagawa's Rashomon, masterpieces of postwar literature such as "Lady Musashino" by Ōoka Seisei, "Embracing the Family" by Nobuo Kojima, and recent works reflecting modern Japanese society have also been translated and published as his Chinese. The translation business is not only about supporting translation, it is also supporting publishing houses to ensure that books can sell well, which is what sets it apart from other businesses. It was a major milestone in the history of literature, allowing works that could not keep up with the pace of commerce to appear in another form, greatly increasing the opportunity to be used as a textbook for Japanese literature at overseas universities, and receiving unanimous praise from people in the industry. However, this importance is not yet recognized by the political world, and it slowly withdrew from the trend of "career division" in the early 10s, which is really sad.
From Japanese Literature to "World Literature"
Now, modern And contemporary Japanese literature has begun to diversify in the form of translation.
People are also liberated from the idea of whether it conforms to certain specific Japanese literature or Japanese culture, and in the future, Japanese literature will also be read as "world literature" and as a valuable work, which will be read by people from all angles. Through overseas readers, those who use Japanese as the language of communication can also feel other values that have not been noticed in the work.
The time is coming to redefine the concept of "translation". For example, Hiroshi Sakurasaka's light novel "All You Need is Kill" was translated into English and made into the movie "Edge of Tomorrow" by Hollywood. The attributes of the characters, the geographical stage background become grand, and the protagonist and the aliens gain the ability to regain their lives after being killed in a fierce firefight, and so on and on the same day; his "setting" is also faithfully "translated". Interestingly, for such an original film, people who watched the film said that they "have a sense of déjà vu playing a video game". Although the characters and venues have been broadened, if it is just a "video game theme story", can the core part of the work be conveyed? It may also be necessary to revisit "faithful translation".
The world is constantly changing at a constant speed. Whether it is the reading environment in which literature is read with translations, the advancement of translation technology, the popularity of social media, etc., these are both similar and somewhat different from 30 years ago. Under such circumstances, what value can Japanese literature gain from translation? When talking about literary translations, the most common question people ask is "Whose?" Which work? How did it translate? ”。 In the future, in this ever-changing world, how much value will those works bring? This is the essence of the problem, and it is also a question that is worth pondering at any time.