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#Translator Spotlight

Ginny Tapley Takemori

Ginny Tapley Takemori is a translator from the UK who is now based in Japan. After working at a literary agency and a publishing company, she began translating Japanese books into English herself. Her published translations include Convenience Store Woman by Murata Sayaka, The Little House by Nakajima Kyoko, and many other Japanese literary works.

Interview Video

*The interview video was released on October 28, 2022.

Profiles

Ginny Tapley Takemori

Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated fiction by over a dozen early modern and contemporary Japanese authors. Her translation of Murata Sayaka’s bestselling Convenience Store Woman (Grove Atlantic, 2018) was awarded the 2020–2021 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Prize. Her translations of Nakajima Kyoko’s Naoki prizewinning The Little House was published in 2019 (Darf Publishers), Murata Sayaka’s  Earthlings in 2020 (Grove Atlantic / Granta). A co-translation of Nakajima Kyoko’s Things Remembered and Things Forgotten (Sort of Books) followed in 2021. Her latest translation is She and Her Cat (Penguin, 2023) by anime filmmaker Shinkai Makoto and novelist Nagakawa Naruki. Takemori lives in Japan.

Photo of Ginny Tapley Takemori

© KIT NAGAMURA

Interviewer: Kanehara Mizuhito

Born in Okayama Prefecture in 1954. Professor at Hosei University and translator of over 600 children’s books, Young Adult novels, and other works, including A Pack of Lies  (Kaiseisha, 1998), The Great Blue Yonder (Kyuryudo, 2002), the Percy Jackson series (co-translation, Holp Shuppan Publications), Blackham’s Wimpy (Fukutake Shoten, 1990), A Man without a Country (NHK Publishing, 2007), The Moon and Sixpence  (Shincho Bunko, 2014), and A Girl I Knew / The Inverted Forest (Shinchosha, 2022). Also the author of essay collections including Hon’yaku wa meguru [Translator, Traveler] (Shunyodo Shoten, 2022) and adaptations of Japanese classics including Kana tehon chushingura [The Forty-seven Ronin] (Kaiseisha, 2012) and Ugetsu monogatari [Tales of Moonlight and Rain] (Iwasaki Shoten, 2012). Website: Kanehara Mizuhito

Photo of Kanehara Mizuhito

Photo: Nezu Chihiro

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