Session

In this presentation, I will draw on my recent work with Hōjōki (方丈記) and Taketori monogatari (竹取物語) to discuss how the rigors of translating Classical Japanese literature shine a light on the fundamental challenges of cross-cultural interpretation – how do we navigate high-context ambiguity and ‘untranslatable’ cultural concepts while negotiating the delicate balance between source fidelity and target accessibility?

Just as Princess Kaguya is caught between the celestial and mortal realms, literary translation presents us with a paradox: we must be deeply ‘in’ the culture without being ‘of’ it. Respecting all that is Japanese (culture, syntax, innuendo) is the necessary ritual that allows us to fulfill a destiny that (generally) lies beyond the country itself.

We navigate a rigid set of linguistic and cultural norms with total fluency, not to stay there, but to facilitate an exit.

My aim is to assert the translator’s role as strategic cultural consultant, whose uniquely human awareness of this Princess Kaguya paradox makes them irreplaceable in a changing world.

I will also offer strategies for working with arcane scripts and documents in order to encourage my fellow wordsmiths to delve into the vast landscape of earlier Japanese texts that are just waiting to be translated.