Translators’ Roundtable Series “More than Worth Sharing”

Spring Garden by Shibasaki Tomoka

Published Kyo no dekigoto [A Day on the Planet] (Kawade Shobo Shinsha) in 2000 (adapted for screen in 2003). For Sono machi no ima wa [Today, in that City] (Shinchosha, 2007), she received the Oda Sakunosuke Prize, the Geijutsu Sensho Newcomers Prize, and the Sakuya Konohana Award. In 2010, Nete mo samete mo [Asako I & II] (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2010) received the Noma Literary Prize for New Writers (adapted for screen in 2018). In 2014, Shibasaki won the Akutagawa Award for Spring Garden. Other publications include Watashi ga inakatta machi de [In a Town Where I Wasn’t] (Shinchosha, 2012), Sen no tobira [A Thousand Doors] (Chuokoron-Shinsha, 2017), and Hyakunen to ichinichi [A Hundred Years and a Day] (Chikuma Shobo, 2020).

Born in Belgium in 1963, Luk Van Haute researched Japanese literature at the University of Tokyo and obtained his PhD from the University of Ghent with a dissertation on the works of Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo. He has translated more than 30 books into Dutch, including works by Oe, Kawabata Yasunari, Murakami Haruki, and Kawakami Hiromi, and has compiled and translated an anthology of 42 modern Japanese short stories. Van Haute is the author of two books on Japan and numerous articles on Japanese culture and society for various newspapers and magazines. He has also lectured on these subjects at several universities.

Patrick Honnoré translates Japanese contemporary literature and manga into French. Since 2016, he has been teaching Japanese-to-French translation at ESIT, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3. His translation of Mizuki Shigeru’s NonNonBa (Éditions Cornélius, 2006) was awarded the Prize for Best Album at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême in 2007, and he received the 17th Prix Konishi de Traduction Littéraire for La Tour de Tokyo (Éditions Philippe Picquier) by Lily Franky. His many translations include works by Kawakami Mieko, Furukawa Hideo, Uchida Hyakken, and Yumeno Kyusaku.

Polly Barton is a translator of Japanese literature and non-fiction, currently based in Bristol, UK. She has translated short stories for Words Without Borders, The White Review, and Granta. Full-length translations include Spring Garden by Shibasaki Tomoka (Pushkin Press, 2017), Where the Wild Ladies Are by Matsuda Aoko (Tilted Axis Press/Soft Skull Press, 2020), and There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Tsumura Kikuko (Bloomsbury, 2020). Her non-fiction debut, Fifty Sounds, will be out with Fitzcarraldo Editions in April 2021.

“Ellie” Huang Bijun was born in Taiwan in 1973 and translates Japanese literature into traditional Chinese language. Now based in Japan, she heads tai-tai-books, a collective working to publicize Taiwan’s publishing scene. Her main translations include traditional Chinese editions of The Great Passage (Thinkingdom, 2013) by Miura Shion, Spring Garden (Linking Books, 2015) by Shibasaki Tomoka, Moso kibun [Delusional Mood] (Reading Times, 2017) by Ogawa Yoko, Rokugatsu no yuki [Snow in June] (Linking Books, 2019) by Nonami Asa, and “Otoko wa tsurai yo” wo tabi suru [Journey in the Footsteps of Tora-san] (Thinkingdom, 2019) by Kawamoto Saburo.