The Canadian Connection: How literary translators bring Japanese voices to the world

You may have noticed an increasing number of Japanese titles appearing on bestseller lists and displayed at your local bookstores and libraries. Behind this growing popularity and access to Japanese voices are literary translators, whose work helps to shape how Japanese literature is read, understood, and enjoyed around the world.

To celebrate the vital yet often unrecognized work of translators who bring Japanese voices to the world, three Canada-based translators of Japanese literature will gather onstage at the Japan Foundation. The conversation will be moderated by an editor of Japanese literature in translation, and together they will reflect on the work of translation, sharing insights into the creative process, the opportunities and challenges facing translators today, and the evolving landscape of Japanese literature in translation. The speakers will also discuss the dynamic role of the literary magazine MONKEY: New Writing from Japan (formerly Monkey Business) in bridging languages, cultures, and literary traditions to bring Japanese literature to English readers.

Book sales for MONKEY will be available at the venue for interested attendees.

Speakers

Ted Goossen taught Japanese literature and film at York University in Toronto. He is coeditor of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan and the general editor of The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, and has published translations of novels, stories and essays by Hiromi Kawakami, Haruki Murakami and Naoya Shiga, among others.

Photo credit: N Halpin

Sonja Arntzen, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto, focuses on the research and translation of premodern Japanese literature. Her books include Ikkyū and the Crazy Cloud Anthology (Tokyo University Press, 1986; revised and expanded edition, Quirin Press, 2022), The Kagerō Diary: A Woman’s Autobiographical Text from Tenth-Century Japan (Michigan University Press, 1996), and The Sarashina Diary: A Woman’s Life in Eleventh-Century Japan (Columbia University Press, 2014). She is currently working on a new translation of the Tenth-Century Ochikubo monogatari (Lady of the Low Chamber) which will offer a new perspective on this classic of early Japanese fiction.

Chris Corker is a British Canadian translator. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis on apocalyptic nostalgia in Japanese literature and film at York University, with a number of articles on the same topic forthcoming in academic journals. A longstanding member of the MONKEY team, Chris’s translations include the work of Ikezawa Natsuki, Suga Keijiro, and Kuma Kengo. He is a regular reviewer at the Asian Review of Books.

Moderator

Photo credit: Katie Brook

Meg Taylor started her career as a book editor in Tokyo, working for Weatherhill, best known for its illustrated books on Japanese arts and culture. In Canada, she worked as a nonfiction editor at Doubleday Canada and other trade publishers and served as an instructor and academic coordinator for the postgraduate Publishing Certificate program at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University). Since returning to the U.S. in 2015, she has focused on Japan-related projects. With Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen, she launched MONKEY New Writing from Japan in 2020, an annual anthology of Japanese literature in translation, building on the success of Monkey Business (2011–2017). She also edits novels and story collections for the Monkey fiction imprint.

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