Monday 7 November 2011

Japanese Literature: Online Translations Part 2


Ozaki Koyo 1868 - 1903





















After having a number of links to online translations to read mounting up in my favourites I thought I'd put them all in one place and also make a post out of them. These are mostly stories and poems to read online again but I thought I'd share them here, hope you find something of interest. Recently published by Kurodahan Press is a collection of short stories, Phantom Lights and Other Stories, by Miyamoto Teru, translated by Roger K. Thomas, if you follow their page about the book theres a link to read a sample story, A Tale of Tomatoes at Japan Focus. Another novel recently found over at Hathi Trust.org is Tokutomi Kenjiro's novel Nami-Ko - A Realistic Novel, from 1898 which I read a while ago, I'm not too sure if this is available to download whole as a PDF, but it maybe of interest if you're interested in reading a Meiji era novel. Another Meiji period novel available to read and download is Ozaki Koyo's, Gold Demon/Konjiki Yasha, first published in 1887, which is available at Archive.Org, this is not a straight translation of the story but a realization of it into English by Arthur Lloyd, and if you're a reader in Japanese they also have Ozaki's Zenshu, (collected works), to read there as well. One of Ozaki's pupils was Izumi Kyoka famous for writing in a Gothic style, you can read and download  the story, The Saint of Mt.Koya, translated by Stephen W. Kohl at Intangible.org, (thanks to the blog Pais de neu for highlighting this story). A more recent book to read is On A Small Bridge in Iraq an account of a visit to Iraq by Akutagwa Prize winning author Natsuki Ikezawa and photographer Seiichi Motohashi, translated by Alfred Birnbaum the book can be read and downloaded  for  free at the publisher, Impala's website. It's great to read about Gunzo's links with the London based literary magazine, Granta, there's lots of stories available to read via the Granta Online Only website but I'd thought I'd highlight some pieces available from Japanese authors, In Goat's Eyes is the Sky Blue?, a short story by Natsuo Kirino, (author of Out), is translated by Philip Gabriel, there's also extracts from two novels by Yang Sok-Il, Taxi Rhapsody and Taxi Driver Diary translated by Alfred Birnbaum under the title In Shinjuku, and thanks to Junbungaku blog for highlighting a story from Hiromi Kawakami called,  God Bless You, 2011, an older story rewritten after the events in March, the poem Yakisoba from Hiromi Ito translated by Jeffrey Angles is also available to read. Here's hoping that the links between these two great magazines continue to grow. Bit of a mixture of things, but hope you find something of interest amongst them.

For - Japanese Literature: Online Translations Part 1.
    

7 comments:

Mel u said...

This post is simply a wonderful resource-I thank you for the hard work that went into producing it

bokusenou said...

This is pretty awesome! Do you have a link to part 1?

bokusenou said...

Ah, nevermind. Found it.

Rise said...

This is great resource. Thanks. Great to see some new writers to discover. I thought Alfred Birnbaum has retired from translation so it's great to see him doing more translations.

There's also a couple more translations from Two Lines Online and Words Without Borders.

http://wordswithoutborders.org/find/languages/japanese/

me. said...

I think I'll have to include a link to Part 1 into this post, glad to hear that there are some pieces here of interest. I did borrow Nu Nu Yi's novel, 'Smile as they Bow', (translated from the Burmese by Alfred Birnbaum), from the library recently but didn't get around to reading it, maybe I'll hunt it out again soon. Also Alfred Birnbaum's translation of Natsuki Ikezawa's Tanizaki Prize winning novel 'The Downfall of Matias Guili', is on the JLPP list, so hopefully a publisher will pick it up soon. Thanks for the comments and also the links Rise, I'll have to have a look at those!.

@parridhlantern said...

Once again a fantastic post & resource, thanks for putting this together, I will thoroughly enjoy searching through the gems here, especially as I fairly recently posted on Japanese modern history

me. said...

Thanks for commenting,will check out your post!.