- Open Letter Books
- Three Percent Problem
- Translated Book Award
- Translation Studies
- Translation Database
As if Natsuo Kirino’s books don’t sound interesting enough by themselves, this interview in the LA Weekly has convinced me to check them out. Her books—two of which are available in English, Out and Grotesque, which was a Reading the World book this year—are beyond categorization, seeming to inhabit a space between crime fiction and literature, with a strong feminist underpinning that is twisted and disturbing.
As if that wasn’t confusing enough, here’s Margy Rochlin’s take:
Margy Rochlin describes her work as:
Author Natsuo Kirino is often referred to as “the queen of Japanese crime fiction.” But is that really the best way to classify her work? Her queasily disturbing, gender-political tales have also been called “Japanese feminist noir,” while in Japan, her brainy writing-style mashup is known as “Kirino Jynru,” or a book that borrows freely from several genres but feels beholden to none of their rules.
Michael Orthofer pointed this out as well, but Kirino’s response to the question about super-agent Binky Urban and which books are next in line to be translated provides an interesting glimpse into the politics of fiction in translation:
I went to New York and I hoped that Soft Cheeks would be translated because I thought it was a really good book. But Binky did her own research and found out through a Japanese connection that Grotesque might be a good option. After hearing a little bit about it, she decided that that would be the next one.
Since Binky doesn’t read Japanese, it’s odd that she has so much say in what comes out when. Although that kind of attention to the American market is what created the image we have of Murakami Haruki . . .
The next book does sound cool though, especially since it sounds like Americans won’t like it:
[What Remains] is a pretty dark story of kidnapping, and appears to be well received [in Japan], but I have my doubts about how it’s going to be received over here because of the sexuality. The narrative is structured in kind of a sandwich form, where you’ve got the author in the present, who’s reflecting on this time in the past when she was kidnapped for one year and held captive by a guy who said he wanted to be her friend. It’s a dark remembrance with these sexual scenes in it, so I feel a little skeptical about how it’s going to be taken here.
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