Friendship Commission Prizes for the Translation of Japanese Literature were presented at an awards ceremony held at Columbia University on April 27th, 2012.įor Manazuru (original work: Manazuru by Hiromi Kawakami). Wherever Mataichih bent his ear to listen, there was the babbling sound of water, and the echo of this hastily improvised mountain steam gave a pulse of movement to the landscape before his eyes.” This story of the unrequited love and madness of a goldfish breeder is well rendered in the measured richness of Vincent’s prose. The disheveled grasses lightly shook off beads of dew and rearranged themselves luxuriantly like bosoms standing to attention. Green, madder, orange, and yellow, each and every cluster of leaves swelled and seemed to gasp with a surfeit of life. “How fresh and forgiving was the breath of the trees and the grasses. This collection also contains the eponymous A Riot of Goldfish (Kingyo ryōran, 1937), which contains one of the most powerful lyrical moments in all of Japanese literature. ![]() The richness of Okamoto’s insistent prose is well matched in the sureness of Vincent’s well- measured rhythms and melodic phrasing. Keith Vincent’s translation of Okamoto Kanoko’s (1889 – 1939) The Food Demon (Shokuma, 1941) successfully captures the author’s many-layered portrait of a complicated “sensei” of cuisine, a man whose disdain for others finds expression in the perfection of his culinary taste and performance as a cook. The Food Demon (in A Riot of Goldfish, Hesperus Worldwide) J. Fortunately for the reader, Ryūhoku polyphonic voice as a penetrating critic, a budding journalist, a faithful chronicler, and as a lyrical poet is appropriately matched by Fraleigh’s boundless erudition and sensitivity to style.Īssistant Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at Boston University At a time when Japanese writing in various sinocentric styles reached a brilliant final flowering before giving way to what we now call “modern Japanese,” this text, as well as the poetry-filled Diary of a Journey to the West that records the author’s trip around the world in 1872 to 1873, show Ryūhoku’s creative struggle to find the proper language with which to capture the harmony and dissonance of tradition and modernity in their frenzied dance with each other. Fraleigh masterfully preserves the linguistic playfulness of the text by providing translations of the colloquial glosses that Ryūhoku added to his Chinese prose. The first of these two translations presents Ryūhoku’s nuanced, often satirical contemplation of Yanagibashi, one of Tokyo’s celebrated entertainment districts that flourished and faded during the tumultuous 1850s – 1870s. Matthew Fraleigh’s carefully annotated translations of Narushima Ryūhoku’s (1837 – 1884) New Chronicles of Yanagibashi (Ryūkyō shinshi) and Diary of a Joukeerney to the West (Kōsei nichijō) help us appreciate the pivotal position of Ryūhoku occupied as someone who bridged the literary worlds of both Edo and Meiji. Narushima Ryūhoku Reports from Home and Abroad (Cornell East Asia Series) New Chronicles of Yanagibashi and Diary of a Journey to the West: Starr East Asian Library Reading Room, 300 Kent HallĬollected Haiku of Yosa Buson (Copper Canyon Press, 2013)Īssistant Professor of East Asian Literature and Culture at Brandeis University ![]() Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literatureįriday 11 December, 5:30 PM, C.V. 2018-2019Ĭlick here for the submission guidelines.ĭeadline for submissions is June 1, 2018.įor The Silver Spoon: Memoir of a Boyhood in Japanįor The Columbia Anthology of Japanese EssayĪwards Ceremony and Reception for the 2015-2016 Japan-U.S. Translators must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States. A prize is given for the best translation of a modern work or a classical work, or the prize is divided between equally distinguished translations. Friendship Commission Prizes for the Translation of Japanese Literature. The Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University annually awards $6,000 in Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature
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