Cathy Hirano, translator of Dragon Sword and Wind Child, has twice garnered the prestigious Batchelder Award for her translated novels. The Society of Writers, Editors, & Translators (SWET) interviewed her about Moribito and DSWC in July.

“SWET member Cathy Hirano is a Japanese-English translator living in Shikoku. Her translation of the young adult (YA) novel The Friends by Kazumi Yumoto (Natsu no niwa; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996) won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for children’s literature in translation and the Boston Globe–Horn Book award for children’s fiction (both in 1997). Misa Dikengil interviewed Hirano via email about two recent YA publications: a translation of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi (Seirei no moribito; Scholastic, 2008) and a revised reissue of her 1993 translation of Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara (Sorairo magatama; VIZ Media, 2007). Shortly after the interview, Hirano’s translation of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit received the 2009 Mildred L. Batchelder Award for Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic.”

Read the full interview here:
Young Adult Fantasy in Translation (SWET)