Philip Gabriel Archives

In Celebration of Women in Translation Month: Asian Women Authors — Part I [in The Booklist Reader]

23 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Thai, Translation

This is the first of a two-part series. Part II will publish on Friday, August 30, 2019. Before I can name even a single author or title, I must express my constantly regenerating, overflowing gratitude to translators who enable readers anywhere and everywhere to literally experience the...

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, translated by Philip Gabriel [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW For those of us in need of a few hours of joyful catharsis, listen up. Despite a narrative driven by impending separation, the gratifying delight is well worth the tears. Narrator George Blagden effortlessly embodies this charming man-and-beast love story, so guilelessly gentle as...

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen [in Christian Science Monitor]

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

'Killing Commendatore' is the latest evasive, magical, utterly unique novel by Murakami A famous painter succumbing to dementia living out his final days in a posh care facility. A wealthy, middle-aged white-haired man who lives alone in a mountainside white mansion. A motherless schoolgirl whose father...

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,...

Penance by Kanae Minato, translated by Philip Gabriel [in Library Journal]

04 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Kanae Minato is two for two for twisted psychological Japanese noir. What she did with deadly milk cartons in Confessions made quite the debut splash. She goes back to school in Penance (expertly rendered into English by lauded translator Philip Gabriel) in which 10-year-old Emily is raped...

Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen [in Christian Science Monitor]

08 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

'Men Without Women' is Murakami at his whimsical best For Haruki Murakami aficionados, reading Men Without Women, Murakami's 20th book to be translated into English, is a whimsical delight. The seven stories in his fourth story collection present another captivating treasure hunt of familiar Murakami motifs...

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel [in Library Journal]

16 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In high school, Tsukuru Tazaki was part of a "perfect community" of five best friends. Each had a color attached to their family names – red, blue, white, black –except for Tsukuru, rendering him "colorless." After Tsukuru begins college in Tokyo, he's brutally excised...

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel

24 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Short Stories, Translation

Another confession: While recently listening to Rupert Degas narrate parts of Hari Kunzru's Gods without Men, I got such a nostalgic pang to hear Degas read Haruki Murakami (after experiencing A Wild Sheep Chase, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and select stories from The Elephant Vanishes thus far in Degas'...

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel [in Library Journal]

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW At the core of 1Q84 is a spectacular love story about a girl and boy who briefly held hands when they were both 10. That said, with the fiercely imaginative Murakami as author, the story’s exposition is gloriously labyrinthine: Welcome “into this enigma-filled world...

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel

13 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Japanese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Translation

For decades now, Haruki Murakami has been one of my all-time favorite novelists ever; back when my grad-schooled brain was more nimble, I even read a few of his titles in their original Japanese. While this mind has considerably weakened since then, at least the muscles are...

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel [in AsianWeek]

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

Kafka on the Shore Here’s the set up: a 15-year-old boy runs away from home possibly in search of his long-missing mother and sister, and is befriended by a library employee and a young...

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel [in aMagazine: Inside Asian America]

01 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Sputnik Sweetheart The latest in genius A Wild Sheep-creator Murakami’s repertoire of dreamy, mystical reveries, this time about the disappearance of the narrator’s quirky, unsettled writer friend. Review: "Works in Translation," aMagazine: Inside Asian America,...

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel [in aMagazine: Inside Asian America]

01 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Underground The unpredictable Murakami deftly forays into nonfiction with an eerily unput-downable compilation of eyewitness accounts of what happened on March 20, 1995 when members of a religious cult unleashed deadly sarin gas on a crowded rush-hour...

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