![]() Since the editor thought the story on its own might be a little too short for a book, he asked me to find two more to go with it, so I chose “Missing Heels” ( Kakato o nakushite, 1991) and “The Gotthard Railway” ( Gotthard testudo, 1996). ![]() So when an editor at Kodansha International asked me if I’d be interested in translating it, I was more than happy to give it a try. ![]() I read it when Tawada was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, and loved the way she used very long sentences to pull the reader into a world that, despite being grounded in reality (namely, the apartment complex where she grew up and its environs) contains elements of fantasy, such as a mysterious stranger who appears to be human but has decidedly dog-like characteristics. The first story of Tawada’s I translated was “The Bridegroom Was a Dog” ( Inumukoiri, 1993). ![]() To me, translation has always been something I do rather than write about, but since I’ve been translating the work of Tawada Yoko for over twenty years now, this seems like a good time to take a look back over the translations I’ve done, leading up the most recent one, Scattered All Over the Earth. Although the shorter sentences should have been much easier to translate, I remember sitting in front of the computer like someone with a bad stutter, unable to get started. ![]()
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