Haikasoru Cathy Hirano Q&A

Haikasoru interviews Cathy Hirano on translating Dragon Sword and Wind Child:

Noriko Ogiwara’s Dragon Sword and Wind Child is loosely based on the ancient Japanese creation myths while Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince is inspired by the tale of Yamato Takeru, a legendary Japanese hero of the fourth century. These myths are an integral part of the Japanese psyche—and not at all part of the English reader’s psyche. For me, the foreign reader, this adds to the books’ charm, but for me, the translator, this means learning as much as possible about the historical context, identifying implied and unstated information that is essential for the non-Japanese reader and presenting it in a way that does not bog down the text and detract from the English reading experience.

Read the rest here:
Haikasoru: Translating Genre from Japan (Beatrice.com)

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