Translation, Literature, and MeJapanese-Turkish Literary Translator’s Visit Report #1
In conjunction with celebrations marking the centennial anniversary of Japanese–Turkish diplomatic relations, the Japan Foundation hosted a thirteen-day visit to Japan for seven early- to mid-career Turkish translators of Japanese literature in November 2024. (Japanese–Turkish Literary Translators’ Visit)
At a panel discussion held during their stay, each participant delivered a short presentation on the theme “Translation, Literature, and Me,” with Miyashita Ryo (associate professor, Osaka University) serving as moderator. This was a valuable opportunity for the seven to share with one another their initial encounters with Japanese literature and their perspectives on translating it. In this report we feature extracts from the presentations delivered by Nuray Akdemir and Zeynep Ebru Okyar.
The seven participants with professor Miyashita at the Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Urawa (November 2024)
Translation That Connects Cultures: Embracing the Challenge of Translating Japanese
Nuray Akdemir
Assistant professor, Social Sciences University of Ankara
Before the 2000s, Japanese literature reached Turkey chiefly as indirect translations via European languages. I always wondered how much of the meaning and cultural context those indirect translations preserved.
For example, take Murakami Haruki’s Noruwei no mori [trans. Norwegian Wood]. In Hon’yaku no jugyō [Lessons in Translation], published by Asahi Shuppan, Yamamoto Shiro compares the fragment “ani wa yahari Todai no igakubu o dete, sono ato o tsugu koto ni natte ita”1 with its English equivalent, “his brother had also graduated from Tokyo [University], gone on to medical school,”2 discussing the differing interpretations the two invite.
The ambiguous grammatical structure of the original Japanese makes it impossible to say for certain whether the brother in question has already graduated, or if these events are expected in the future. In the English translation, however, it is clear that the brother has started medical school and has yet to graduate. Meanwhile, in the Turkish translation via French, “Todai’de tıp okumuş olan ağabeyi babasının yerine geçecekti,”³ the brother has graduated not only university but medical school as well.
Chronological order and causality are not always clearly indicated in Japanese, which leaves a great deal of room for interpretation by translators into other languages. Japanese grammar and vocabulary can be ambiguous, and editors sometimes intervene to overcome cultural barriers. As a translator, I am always asking myself whether I can preserve the meaning of the source as much as possible without sacrificing clarity of expression.
1. Murakami Haruki, Noruwei no mori, (Kodansha, 1987), 67–68.
2. Murakami Haruki, Norwegian Wood, trans. Jay Rubin (Vintage Books, 2000), 39.
3. Murakami Haruki, İmkansızın şarkısı, trans. Nihal Önol (Doğan Kitap, 2000), 43.
A Trial-and-Error Approach to Conveying the Original Japanese
Zeynep Ebru Okyar
Employee, AI Data & Language Services; freelance translator and editor
Translating the ambiguity of Japanese into Turkish has proven highly challenging in the various translations I have worked on since 2020. For example, at a certain point in Natsume Soseki’s Michikusa [trans. Grass on the Wayside], we encounter what could be either a single flower or multiple flowering plants. The source text is ambiguous, and there are no clarifying descriptions in later sentences. Using Google search as a tool, I did my best to imagine the sentence in concrete terms.
Translating wordplay is also challenging. In Ayatsuji Yukito’s Jukkakukan no satsujin [trans. The Decagon House Murders], a riddle appears: Ue o mireba shita ni ari, shita ni areba ue ni ari, haha no hara o tōtte ko no kata ni ari1 (roughly, “Look up and it is below, look down and it is above; it goes through the mother’s belly and rests on the child’s shoulders”). The answer is the kanji 一, but solving the riddle requires knowledge of what this and other kanji look like. This prerequisite made it difficult to translate the riddle into Turkish, and I regretted the inability to fully convey the visual impact of kanji like 母 (mother) and 子 (child). In my translations, I strive to give Turkish readers the experience of imagining something as close as possible to what the original evokes for Japanese readers.
1. Ayatsuji Yukito, Jukkakukan no satsujin (Kodansha, 1987), 214.
Profiles
Nuray Akdemir
Nuray Akdemir is an assistant professor at the Social Sciences University of Ankara. She visited Japan from 2012 to 2013 to attend the Japan Foundation’s Long-Term Training Program for Teachers of the Japanese-Language, then again from 2017 to 2018 on the Japanese Studies Fellowship Program. In her dissertation Non–Western European Dystopias: Oe Kenzaburo, Tawada Yoko, Murakami Ryuichi, she analyzed depictions of dystopia in Japanese literature.
Akdemir currently leads a class in translating Japanese literature at the Social Sciences University of Ankara, teaching translation theory and practice through group work on texts by contemporary Japanese authors including Kawabata Yasunari, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Oe Kenzaburo, Tawada Yoko, and Imamura Natsuko.
Zeynep Ebru Okyar
Zeynep Ebru Okyar is a freelance translator and editor as well as a project coordinator for an AI development company. She has been involved in the translation of many Japanese works into Turkish, including Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro [trans. Kokoro], Dazai Osamu’s Dōke no hana [The Flowers of Buffoonery], and Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s Tenkibo [The Record of the Dead] and Aru ahō no isshō [trans. The Life of a Stupid Man]. She is also the Turkish translator of Asagiri Kafka’s manga Bungō sutorei doggusu [trans. Bungo Stray Dogs], which has found an appreciative audience in Turkey, with 14 volumes released as of 2025.
Okyar is interested in Japanese literature on themes such as feminism and food and hopes one day to translate work by Yuzuki Asako.
