japanamerica

My Murakami feature story in Newsweek Japan

2013-05-21T17:19:00.001-04:00

I wrote the lead story for Newsweek Japan's new feature on Haruki Murakami, and it's available in digital format here.

On Haruki Murakami, Monkey Business & the art of literary translation for The New Yorker

2013-05-20T15:17:00.001-04:00

Lost in Translation?

Posted by Roland Kelts

Last month, Haruki Murakami published a new novel in Japan. Before anyone could read it, the novel broke the country’s Internet pre-order sales record, its publisher announced an advance print run of half a million copies, and Tokyo bookstores opened at midnight to welcome lines of customers, some of whom read the book slumped in corners of nearby cafés straight after purchase. But this time, the mania was déjà vu in Japan—a near-replica of the reception that greeted Murakami’s last novel, “1Q84,” three years ago. The response was news to nearly no one. Except, maybe, Haruki Murakami.

“The fact that I have been able to become a professional working novelist is, even now, a great surprise to me,” Murakami wrote in an e-mail three days before the release of “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.” He added: “In fact, each and every thing that has happened over the past 34 years has been a sequence of utter surprise.” The real surprise, perhaps, is that Murakami’s novels now incite a similar degree of anticipation and hunger outside of Japan, even though they are written in a language spoken and read by a relatively small population on a distant and parochial archipelago in the North Pacific.

Murakami is a writer not only found in translation (in forty-plus languages, at the moment) but one who found himself in translation. He wrote the opening pages of his first novel, “Hear the Wind Sing,” in English, then translated those pages into Japanese, he said, “just to hear how they sounded.” And he has translated several other American writers into Japanese, most notably Raymond Carver, John Irving, J. D. Salinger, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose “The Great Gatsby” Murakami credits as the inspiration behind his entire career.

Motoyuki Shibata, a translator, scholar, and professor at Tokyo University, told me that American fiction becomes an entirely different creature in an alien habitat when presented to Japanese readers. “In the Meiji era, most Japanese read Americans for moral instruction,” he said. “They wanted to learn about concepts of autonomy and individualism and Christianity. They were not seeking entertainment.” American literature arrived in nineteenth-century Japan on the heels of its military—forcing open an isolated nation with modern ideas and technology. Early translators and readers, Shibata said, approached life and literature with a rigid racial hierarchy, with the Caucasians at the top, the Japanese in the middle, and the remaining ethnicities and colors at the bottom. Anything written by whites from the West was deemed inherently superior, just because Japanese looked up to them.

After the Second World War, novels like “The Old Man and the Sea,” “The Call of the Wild,” and “Moby-Dick” entranced Japanese readers yearning for a future of heroism, naturalism, and reason in the wake of the chaotic militarism and destruction they’d endured. Instruction was still a part of the appeal, but heroism and identity moved to the forefront. The transformation to a more purely literary engagement with American fiction, with readers appreciating and actually enjoying American prose over what it could teach them, occurred in 1975. That’s when Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan were translated into Japanese and introduced a sense of humor, absurdity, and social criticism voiced in vernacular prose.

Kazuko Fujimoto’s translation of Brautigan’s best-known work, “Trout Fishing in America,” was a revelation to Japanese readers like Shibata and Murakami. “That was the first time,” said Shibata, “instead of looking up to the author and the characters, I looked level at them. I felt characters finally began to talk like real human beings, though of course with their own oddities and eccentricities.” He continued: “Ms. Fujimoto’s Japanese was often quirky and zany, but that quirkiness and zaniness was in accord with the feel of the originals. She broke the rules of everyday Japanese, but the way she did it was more fun, and she made the Japanese language richer, instead of torturing the poor thing as some older translators did.”

Brautigan and Vonnegut are far more famous and well-read in Japan today than American stalwarts like John Updike, Philip Roth, and Toni Morrison. Readers are more likely to buy books based on entertaining storytelling and plots, the quality and sound of the Japanese prose, and the reputation of the translator. “I sometimes don’t think I understand American readers,” Murakami told me in Boston several years ago when trying to parse why a novel that he loved, Tim O’Brien’s “The Nuclear Age,” was widely panned in the States. “I sometimes think they’re missing something.”

To fill that gap of understanding, Shibata and his friend Ted Goossen, a translator of Japanese literature and professor at Toronto’s York University, have for three years been publishing an annual English-language literary magazine called Monkey Business International: New Writing from Japan. (I am a contributing editor.) The project was born out of frustration: Why was Haruki Murakami the only contemporary Japanese writer anybody outside of Japan knew? Goossen urged Shibata to cull material from his own Japanese-language literary quarterly, the original Monkey Business. Murakami is a contributor, of course, but his writing takes on new colors alongside stories and poems by his Japanese contemporaries (younger and older), classic Japanese literature, and even Japanese manga.

Still, I can’t help but wonder if the translation of literature, where the strengths and even personality of the original are embedded in the language, is futile, however heroic. “When you read Haruki Murakami, you’re reading me, at least ninety-five per cent of the time,” Jay Rubin, one of Murakami’s longtime translators, told me in Tokyo last month, explaining what he says to American readers, most of whom prefer to believe otherwise. “Murakami wrote the names and locations, but the English words are mine.” Murakami once told me that he never reads his books in translation because he doesn’t need to. While he can speak and read English with great sensitivity, reading his own work in another language could be disappointing—or worse. “My books exist in their original Japanese. That’s what’s most important, because that’s how I wrote them.”

But he clearly pays attention during the process of translation. Rubin said that the first time he translated a Murakami novel, “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” he phoned the author several times one day to nail word choices and correct inconsistencies. “In one scene, a character had black-framed glasses. In another, the frames were brown. I asked him: Which one is it?” I found Rubin’s anecdote revealing. The Japanese language acquires much of its beauty and strength from indirectness—or what English-speakers call vagueness, obscurity, or implied meaning. Subjects are often left unmentioned in Japanese sentences, and onomatopoeia, with vernacular sounds suggesting meaning, is a virtue often difficult if not impossible to replicate in English.

Alternatively, English is often lauded for its specificity. Henry James advised novelists to find the figure in the carpet, implying that details and accuracy were tantamount to literary expression. Is it possible that Japanese and English are two languages so far apart that translators can only reinvent their voices by creating entirely new works? Last week, Shibata, Goossen, and a lineup of Japanese and American writers were in New York to host a series of events to introduce the third and latest English version of Monkey Business, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. At their Asia Society dialogue, Goossen quoted Charles Simic’s take on the magical absurdity of translating poetry: “It’s that pigheaded effort to convey in words of another language not only the literal meaning of a poem but an alien way of seeing things … To translate is not only to experience what makes each language distinct, but to draw close to the mystery of the relationship between word and thing, letter and spirit, self and world.”

Murakami would likely agree. In a recently published essay on his decision to render “The Great Gatsby” in Japanese, the sixty-four-year-old author reveals that it became something of a lifelong mission. He told others about his ambition in his thirties, and believed then that he’d be ready to undertake the challenge when he reached sixty. But he couldn’t wait. Like an overeager child unwrapping his presents, he translated “Gatsby” three years ahead of schedule. Translation, he writes, is similar to language and our relationship with our world. It, too, needs to be refreshed:

"Translation is a matter of linguistic technique… which naturally ages as the particulars of a language change. While there are undying works, on principle there can be no undying translations. It is therefore imperative that new versions appear periodically in the same way that computer programs are updated. At the very least this provides a broader spectrum of choices, which can only benefit readers."

Roland Kelts is the author of “Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the United States.” He divides his time between New York and Tokyo.

Photograph: Kevin Trageser/Redux

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/05/lost-in-translation.html?printable=true&currentPage=all#ixzz2TrU7Z3pO

Japan Times column on pop and tourism in Japan

2013-05-09T00:53:00.000-04:00

Pop tourism gains traction
BY ROLAND KELTS

Pre-flight shopping at Narita airport a couple of weeks ago, I passed a mannequin sporting a light-blue necktie and a turquoise wig with pig tails dangling down to its mini skirt. The vision spoke volumes: It was Hatsune Miku, of course, Japan’s holographic, animated virtual pop star, beloved fashion icon and model for pop culture fans and cosplayers worldwide. But why was she suddenly manning the plaza concourse of Japan’s busiest tourist portal, standing tall beside Uniqlo and Shu Uemura?

It turns out Miku is part of an expansive display in the new airport outlet of Cospa Akihabara, a shop devoted to Japanese pop culture products for global otaku (geeks)and cosplayers. The Narita venue opened in February and had a lively crowd of consumers at its counters when I stalled next to Miku last month, gingerly fingering my wallet.

Tourism has long been a fiscal conundrum for Japan, the country’s potential cash cow stifled by its resistance to foreigners and xenophobic anxieties, and hampered by a reputation for overblown prices — a crude hangover from the bubble years of the 1980s. The 3/11 disasters and ongoing plight of Fukushima only exacerbate the problem.

Worse, the nation’s soft-power selling point often seems stuck in centuries past. Those of us who live, work and travel here know well the virtues contemporary Japan boasts. But for years, Japan has promoted itself overseas as a bastion of bygone traditions — demure kimono-clad girls and stoic samurai boys cowering beneath a volcano called Fuji, with raw seafood and grass mats for comfort.

In the face of its 21st-century reality, this hoary image of Japan wears thin fast. The “Pokemon” and “Naruto” generations might dig the temples of Nara once they get there, but they need a reason to get there first.

Seiji Horibuchi, founder of Viz Media, a veteran U.S. distributor of Japanese entertainment, has long understood the appeal of what the government still labels Cool Japan. In 2009, Horibuchi opened New People, a three-story bricks-and-mortar retail outlet in San Francisco’s Japan Town, tailored to the tastes of young Americans and tourists with an interest in contemporary Japanese culture. The complex features fashion boutiques, an art gallery and an HD cinema with a THX sound-system for the screening of first-run Japanese feature films and anime titles.

New People’s latest venture, launched in January, is an online magazine called New People Travel, an attempt to connect anime fans with their heroes, veteran artists in the industry who have earned rock-star status, while introducing Japan as an attractive and accessible 21st-century tourist destination.

I asked the company about the magazine last week via email from my hotel in South Africa, where the market for Japanese pop culture has recently spiked.

“Our ultimate goal is to interest more people in traveling to and in Japan,” said New People Executive Director Manami Iiboshi. “This has been a similar goal for the New People building since it opened. The site is available in both Japanese and English because we wanted to share this vision with people both inside and outside of Japan. Sometimes even Japanese people need to see themselves from an outside standpoint in order to appreciate their culture and its beauty.”

The site’s current incarnation is a gift for anime fans and other aficionados of Japanese art. “Ghost in the Shell” maestro Mamoru Oshii weighs in on the soulless nature of modern Tokyo and its susceptibility to military attack; “Final Fantasy” artist Yoshitaka Amano discusses longing for his childhood in Shizuoka Prefecture and drawing on the beauty of the Kumano region in Wakayama and Mie prefectures; and Mamoru Hosoda explains why he set the family home in “Summer Wars” in his wife’s rural hometown of Ueda in Nagano Prefecture.

New People Travel grew out of a collaboration with Japan’s Aisin Aw Co., Ltd. (a developer of car navigation systems), and its latest issue introduces a broad range of travel destinations in Japan such as the Noto Peninsula, Kyoto and the Hakata district in Fukuoka, alongside interviews with film director Katushito Ishii and Pixar artist Dice Tsutsumi.

“We picked a very diverse group of visionaries to showcase on the site,” added Iiboshi, “to provide readers with a new and colorful vision of Japan shown through the eyes of Japanese artists that have broad recognition worldwide.”

This summer New People will host their fifth J-Pop Summit Festival, its annual San Francisco-based celebration of Japanese culture, entertainment and fashion featuring live performances, exhibitions, and for the first time, a gourmet food truck festival. Last year’s event drew 65,000 attendees. New People will expand the festival venues in 2013 to include Union Square in the heart of the city, and they anticipate a record-breaking 70,000 visitors.

On the U.S. East Coast, summer will also see the 20th anniversary of Otakon, the region’s most popular anime convention, whose organizers announced earlier this year that they would host a second Japanese pop culture convention in Las Vegas in January 2014. And next month, a series of launch events will be held in New York City for the latest issue of Monkey Business International, the English-language edition of the contemporary Japanese literary magazine, to which (full disclosure) I am a contributing editor. The weeklong sessions will bring together Japanese literati Genichiro Takahashi, Mina Ishikawa and Motoyuki Shibata with Americans Paul Auster, Charles Simic and Kevin Brockmeier, among others, and will be hosted by the PEN World Voices Festival.

On April 4, the United Nations World Tourism Organization announced that Chinese travelers have overtaken Germans and Americans as the world’s biggest spenders. Whether political tensions will keep them from booking flights to Japan remains to be seen. But with Japan’s domestic stimulus taps now turned fully on, thanks to so-called Abenomics and Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda, it’s high time the nation marshaled its cultural capital abroad to line the coffers at home.

Roland Kelts is the author of “Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the U.S.” He is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Tokyo.

Thanks -- and Monkey Finale in NYC

2013-05-03T15:46:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the tremendous support of Monkey Business this week in NYC.

Our final event takes place tomorrow, May 4, at The Asia Society of New York, once again hosted by The PEN World Voices Festival. Paul Auster & Charles Simic will join Genichiro Takahashi & Mina Ishikawa for a "Japan/America Writer's Dialogue," facilitated by Monkey founders and editors Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen.

Copies of all three issues of Monkey Business will be on sale at a special on-site only price. Tix & info here.

Joe's Pub, 5/1

BookCourt, 5/2

On traveling to Cape Town, South Africa ...

2013-05-01T13:47:00.003-04:00

... before I even went. Latest travel column about anticipating and imagining a voyage to virgin territory. For Paper Sky magazine.

[click to enlarge]

(photos courtesy of Sevgin Adaliev)

Monkey Business launch party, tomorrow, May 1, in NYC

2013-04-30T19:01:00.002-04:00

Check out the bands for MONKEY's launch tomorrow night

We’re thrilled to have two brilliant Japanese bands performing at tomorrow night’s opening party for Monkey Business, Issue 3. It will be an evening not to be missed.

*Check out NEO BLUES MAKI here.

*And then hang with Japanese female indie rockers THE SUZAN here.

**Catch them both live tomorrow night, May 1st … right here.

Chinese translation rights to Japanamerica ....

2013-04-25T19:38:00.001-04:00

...now sold. And it's all legal!

My thanks to the book's US/UK publisher, Macmillan, and to Chinese publisher Beijing Yanziyue Culture & Art Studio for their faith and largesse.

Looking forward to the new cover, and to the end of wasteful and hoary disputes among three great countries.

Monkey Business 3 Launch in NYC next week

2013-04-22T07:04:00.000-04:00

Here's the initial rundown, as of right now.

~~-----------------~~-----------------------------------------------

[EVENT 1] Wednesday, May 1st 2013, 7-8:30pm

Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, New York

Monkey Business: A Cabaret with A Public Space

East meets West Meets Uptown meets Downtown

Readings by Gen’ichiro Takahashi, Mina Ishikawa, Kevin Brockmeier, Ted Goossen and Motoyuki Shibata

Music by Neo Blues Maki and The Suzan

Hosted by Roland Kelts

[PEN info]

PEN World Voices joins with Asia Society, A Public Space,

and Monkey Business International—the acclaimed

English-language anthology of newly translated Japanese

writing—for a cabaret-style night of readings, conversation,

and music. Hosted by Japanamerica author Roland Kelts.

Tickets: $15/$12 PEN Members and students with valid ID

$12 food minimum or two drink minimum per person

212-967-7555 or www.publictheater.org, or visit The Public

Theater Box Office at 425 Lafayette Street. Box Office Hours:

Sun-Mon 1-6 p.m., Tue-Sat 1-7:30 p.m.

EVERYONE WITH A TICKET GETS A FREE COPY OF ISSUE 3 OF MONKEY BUSINESS

Presented in association with The Public Theater, a center

for culture, arts, and ideas, and co-sponsored by Asia Society,

Monkey Business, and A Public Space.

----------------------------------------------------------------

[EVENT 2] Thursday, May 2nd 2013, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m Baruch College, 55 Lexington Ave. at 24th St., New York

Resonances: Contemporary Writers on the Classics
Participants: Nadeem Aslam, Eduardo Halfon, James Kelman, and Gen’ichiro Takahasi

Moderated by: Eva S. Chou

[PEN Info]
Before the flame, a spark.

Each year, a group of Festival authors are invited by Baruch
College’s Great Works program to comment on a classic
work of literature or author that influenced their own work.
Panelists speak about the great works that affected them,
read from their own work or their chosen classic text to
illustrate the impact, then engage in discussion with the
audience.

Free and open to the public.

Co-sponsored by The Great Works Program, Weissman
School of Arts and Sciences—Baruch College, Asia Society,
Monkey Business, and A Public Space.

----------------------------------------------------------------

[EVENT 3] Dialogue between Kevin Brockmeier and Mina Ishikawa

Roland Kelts introduces Monkey Business, and Goossen and Shibata say hello to the audience

Thursday, May 2, 7pm

BookCourt, 163 Court Street, Brooklyn

----------------------------------------------------------------

[EVENT 4] Saturday,May 4th 2013, 2-3:30pm

Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue at 70th Street, New York

Monkey Business--Japan/America: Writers’ Dialogue

Dialogues between Paul Auster and Gen’ichiro Takahashi, and between Charles Simic and Mina Ishikawa

[PEN info]

Paul Auster and Charles Simic join Gen’ichiro Takahashi,

one of

Japan

’s leading novelists and critics, and Mina Ishikawa,

a fresh new voice in tanka poetry, for an intriguing cross-cultural

encounter. The conversation will be facilitated by eminent translators

Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen, the editors of the acclaimed

English-language anthology of newly translated Japanese writing,

Monkey Business International.

Tickets: $15/$10 Asia Society and PEN Members; $12

students and seniors

Co-sponsored by Asia Society, A Public Space, and Monkey

Business.

Shibata will be giving a talk at Baruch College at 1pm, on May 2

Shibata is also giving a keynote speech for a symposium “The Politics of Polyglossia,” at Baruch College, 1:30pm, May 6:

The Monkey meets the Amazon

2013-03-20T09:29:00.001-04:00

Find us there, here.

The online anime revolution has finally ignited in Japan - The Japan Times

2013-03-15T08:41:00.001-04:00

My new column for The Japan Times on pop culture and new media from Japan.

LA interview on being half Japanese & more

2013-03-08T03:53:00.001-05:00

My conversation with writer Colin Marshall -- one of the most thoughtful and probing interviewers I've yet met -- was recording amid my last visit to Los Angeles and can be heard here.

[Illustration by Gant Powell]

Tokyo kids are all right

2013-03-04T03:56:00.001-05:00

Junot, Marjorie, RK, Yuko.

RK, Lisa, Richard, Hiroko, Mio, Jake, Sandra

I Love LA

2013-02-28T09:45:00.001-05:00

@ The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles.

Monkey Business Issue 3 has landed in Tokyo

2013-02-28T01:19:00.000-05:00

Grab one at this weekend's Tokyo International Literary Festival.

Issue 3 is available only in Tokyo starting March 1. The US edition will be released on April 1, and will be available as an e-book on Kindle, Nook, Kobo and iBooks, and in print via Amazon.

A new Monkey Business website will go live next week.

Our first round of launch events will take place in New York City during the first week of May. Gen'ichiro Takahashi, Paul Auster, Mina Ishikawa, Charles Simic and others will appear in a series of discussions and readings hosted by the PEN World Voices Festival.

Make your plans now and please join us.

Me and Hatsune Miku in the Japan Times

2013-02-16T20:55:00.002-05:00

Hello Kitty gets her own (wordless) manga, at last

2013-02-11T14:59:00.000-05:00

No need for translation.
From the VIZ presser, in collaboration w/Sanrio:
Both wordless HELLO KITTY graphic novels will be available as part of the VIZ Kids line:

HELLO KITTY: HERE WE GO! is a single volume graphic novel debuting at Comic-Con this summer, with an exclusive cover by Eisner-nominated artist Jacob Chabot, featuring artwork by Victoria Maderna, Ian McGinty, and Jacob Chabot.
HELLO KITTY FASHION MUSIC WONDERLAND is the main graphic novel series, available starting this Fall, following Hello Kitty in a collection of stories as she travels the world exploring an underground realm, chases an unsavory cake thief, climbs the Himalayas and more!

Japanamerica reclaims #1 ...

2013-02-04T20:18:00.000-05:00

... on Amazon's animation sales page:

Appearing in LA on Feb 20: ANIME & HOLLYWOOD

2013-02-03T22:01:00.000-05:00

ANIME & HOLLYWOOD at the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, Feb. 20:

Guest Speaker: Roland Kelts; author, journalist, and musician

Date: Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 from 7:00PM

Venue: JFLA Auditorium (5700 Wilshire BVLD. STE100)

Registration: Click Here to RSVP (Required)

For the fourth JFLA lecture series, the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles invites Roland Kelts, author of “Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S.,” to discuss his views on Anime, its influences on Hollywood, and vice-versa. He has written about a wide range of topics relating to the Japanization of Americans, which he describes as “the third wave of Japanophilia – outsiders’ infatuation with Japan’s cultural character.” This is not a simple story about Otaku or the Kawaii phenomenon, but a very in-depth examination of how Japanese and American entertainment businesses are influencing each other in an infinite loop. Just as Japanese artists like Osamu Tezuka, Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo were fascinated by classic and sci-fi American movies, George Lucas, The Wachowskis, Guillermo del Toro and others were influenced by Japanese anime classics like Gatchaman, Speed Racer, Spirited Away, Akira and Ghost in the Shell. In his presentation, Kelts will explore why Hollywood is fascinated with Japanese pop culture and is trying to remake popular Japanese anime titles to appeal to a whole new generation of viewers--and the challenges and potential missteps along the way. Please make sure to join us as we dwell into the colorful and eccentric world of the entertainment industry on both sides of the Pacific.

AKB48 gets it wrong again

2013-01-31T18:52:00.001-05:00

http://mbmelodies.tumblr.com/

AKB48's magazine misstep

2013-01-24T21:52:00.000-05:00

Comiket in Tokyo, Winter 2012/2013

2013-01-09T18:19:00.001-05:00

Where masses of fans -- half a million strong -- converge, pose, photograph, create and share. We got yer Creative Commons right here in Japan, and it's live, at Big Sight in Odaiba, and it's over 35 years old. Crowdsourcing from the core.

[pics courtesy of our friends at ROCKIN' ANDROID]

Happy Birthday, Hayao Miyazaki, 72

2013-01-05T20:31:00.002-05:00

Thank you, Kindlers, in 2012

2012-12-28T19:28:00.000-05:00

The sort of stuff that helps me finish the next book. Thanks.

Trevor meets Chester in Andover

2012-12-27T00:06:00.001-05:00

Happy Hols 2012

2012-12-24T18:27:00.001-05:00

Happy Holidays from Japan & America -- and to each and every one.

Egg nog, Boston, 2012

Osechi, Tokyo, 2012

Hanukkah, Los Angeles, 2012

Singalong, Brooklyn, 2012

Chocos, Manhattan, 2012

Brandy