Translation Archives - Page 15 of 46

Anglophoned Fiction Favorites [in Global Literature in Libraries Initiative’s “Japan in Translation” series]

22 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

My two unfinished almost-ABD-PhDs still makes my mother cringe. I know, I know: even in middle age, my tiger mother looms, not to mention I still have occasional nightmares about missing seminar with my beloved, last advisor. His passing remains my excuse for academic desertion,...

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

07 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In nursery school, Keiko pragmatically suggested that the dead bird in the park could become a grilled treat for her father. In primary school, she ended a forbidden brawl by hitting a boy on the head with a spade. She stopped a teacher’s hysterics...

A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa, translated by Risa Kobayashi [in Library Journal]

23 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Japanese, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, North Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Memoirs by North Korean defectors have proliferated, but Masaji Ishikawa's, originally published in 2000, might be the first available in English translation by a Japanese-born escapee. The Japanese bestseller, I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook (2004), by pseudonymous Kenji Fujimoto, could be the only other...

The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi, translated by Luke Leafgren [in Booklist]

12 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iraqi, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The lives of two girls, the narrator and Nadia, born during the Iran-Iraq War are continuously delineated by conflict. As young children, they meet in a Baghdad air-raid shelter under siege in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm and become best friends. Their growing up is marked...

Someone to Talk to by Liu Zhenyun, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin [in Library Journal]

09 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Knowing each other's stories – even the most private details – doesn't equate with the true intimacy of having "someone to talk to." The two distinct sections of Liu's (Remembering 1942) latest Anglophone-friendly novel present two such lonely men whose seemingly unrelated lives share a...

Graphic Gems: Novels, Biographies, and Memoirs for Younger Readers [in The Booklist Reader]

05 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Japanese American, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Russian, Russian American, Translation, Turkish, Turkish American, Young Adult Readers

Since I recently shared some utterly satisfying single-volume graphic titles for adults, I figured I should point out a few outstanding titles for middle-grade and YA readers, as well. That said, so-called grown-ups will surely find many of these titles just as satisfying. Equal literary...

Graphic Gems: Novels, Story Collections, and Memoirs for Adults [in The Booklist Reader]

04 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

While I’m addicted to various manga series (click here and here for some of my favorites), I’ve also discovered the satisfaction of single-volume graphic titles offering that perfect balance of fascinating narrative and gorgeously complementary, enhancing art. From goofy to haunting, comforting to challenging, and...

Familiar Things by Sok-yong Hwang, translated by Sora Kim-Russell [in Booklist]

29 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Toughened by a nickname thrown at him by a policeman threatening punishment, Bugeye arrives on Flower Island – an ironic name for the vast city dump on the outskirts of Seoul – with his mother, who works as a garbage picker. His father is...

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Dunya Mikhail [in Booklist]

28 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Iraqi, Iraqi American, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Award-winning poet Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi exile who fled her homeland in 1996 and eventually settled in Michigan, makes her nonfiction debut with a hybrid text that combines reportage and personal memoir with the intention of giving voice to northern Iraqi women victims of Daesh...

Dust and Other Stories by Yi T’aejun, translated by Janet Poole [in Booklist]

05 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW During Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea (1910–45), marked by systematic suppression of the Korean language, culture, and identity, Yi T’aejun produced stories that were “considered among the best of his time.” Translator Janet Poole’s impressive introduction not only contextualizes Yi’s significance in the Korean canon...

GO by Kazuki Kaneshiro, translated by Takami Nieda [in Booklist]

22 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Japan and Korea’s centuries-long, combative history has long made Koreans in Japan second-class citizens. Kaneshiro, who is Korean Japanese, channels his own experiences into his teenage protagonist, Sugihara, a Japan-born-and-raised ethnic Korean. Sugihara decides to transfer into a Japanese high school after attending only Korean...

Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Louise Heal Kawai [in Library Journal]

21 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Fourth grader he may be, but our narrator is quite the sharp observer of his surroundings. His father is dead; his mother runs a "fortune-telling and that kind of stuff" salon. She's often the recipient of his unguarded bluntness: "If video games make you stupid,...

In Black and White by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, translated by Phyllis I. Lyons [in Booklist]

19 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

“[W]e can’t distinguish what is the truthful artist and what is the lying social man.” For Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s (The Gourmet Club, 2001) protagonist, the writer Mizuno, creating fiction using real-life details – he models a murder victim on a casual acquaintance, even inadvertently slipping in...

Soul Cage [Reiko Himekawa, Book 2] by Tetsuya Honda, translated by Giles Murray [in Library Journal]

09 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

Narrator Emily Woo Zeller went solo in The Silent Dead, which introduced Anglophone readers to Tokyo Metropolitan Police lieutenant Reiko Himekawa in her 2016 debut (smoothly rendered by Giles Murray who consistently translates again here); in Honda's sophomore series title, Zeller has company. Feodor Chin...

Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk about Their Lives Inside the World’s Most Secretive Nation by Daniel Tudor [in Booklist]

08 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Korean, Nonfiction, North Korean, Repost, Translation

For Western readers, most North Korea-focused titles cover two categories, writes Daniel Tudor, former Korea correspondent for The Economist: politics and “testimony-style books written by defectors who tell horror stories.” What’s missing are “the real daily experiences of the vast majority of the North Koreans”...

Dissolving Classroom by Junji Ito, translated by Melissa Tanaka

26 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Here's your upfront warning: gruesome horror ahead. As one of Japan's most successful horror manga artists, Junji Ito knows how to make your hair rise, your heart race, your stomach churn. This one comes with quite the social commentary, too: beware of empty, false apologies....

A Transracial Adoption Reader [in The Booklist Reader]

10 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian American, Korean, Korean American, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Now-adult adoptees who arrived in the United States from other countries are learning that their U.S. citizenship can’t be assumed. Two recent tragedies have highlighted the shocking realization: the May 2017 suicide of Phillip Clay, adopted at eight by a Philadelphia family and deported to Seoul 29...

The Emissary by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani [in Library Journal]

02 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

Japanese-born, Germany-based Tawada (Memoirs of a Polar Bear) writes facilely in both languages and creates incomparable award-winning fiction that defies easy labels. Tawada's latest in translation (smoothly rendered by Mitsutani, who also translated one of Tawada's earliest works, the three-storied The Bridegroom Was a Dog)...

My Brother’s Husband (Volume 1) by Gengoroh Tagame, translated by Anne Ishii

29 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Talk about a new kind of family ...

Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai, illustrated by Kerascoët

28 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in British Asian, Children/Picture Books, European, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pakistani, South Asian, Translation

As the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize – in 2014 at age 17 – Malala Yousafzai is an internationally recognized icon for girls' education and empowerment. Her story here speaks to the youngest readers, instilling potential and hope, rather than highlighting the fear and...

BookDragon Translation