翻訳目録

2018年 村田沙耶香『コンビニ人間』
多和田葉子『献灯使』全米図書賞 翻訳文学部門
2019年 川上弘美の作品が新たに2冊
小川洋子『密やかな結晶』全米図書賞翻訳文学部門の最終候補 ブッカー国際賞候補
2020年
2月松田青子『おばちゃんたちのいるところ』イギリス独立系の出版社ティルティッド・アクシス・プレス
4月川上未映子『夏物語』
8月川上弘美『このあたりの人たち』
10月村田沙耶香『地球星人』
11月津村記久子『この世にたやすい仕事はない』
小山田浩子『穴』
2021年 中島京子の短編集
今村夏子『むらさきのスカートの女』
川上弘美『大きな鳥にさらわれないように』
　川上未映子『夏物語』の英訳は4月から5月にかけて英米などで刊行される予定だが、2017年に村上春樹が『夏物語』へとアップデートされた『乳と卵』を「breathtaking(息を呑むほどに見事)」と絶賛した記事が文芸サイト「Literary Hub」に掲載されたのをきっかけに期待感が高まり、2019年12月にヴォーグ誌の「2020年に読みたい41冊」の一冊に、刊行を2週間後に控えた今年3月下旬にはニューヨーク・タイムズ紙の「4月に読みたい7冊」に選ばれた。

　川上未映子や小山田浩子の作品を訳しているデイヴィッド・ボイド

村田沙耶香 多和田葉子 小川洋子 川上未映子 松田青子 恩田陸

村田沙耶香 川上未映子 小川洋子 松田青子 多和田葉子 津島佑子 桐野夏生 恩田陸

村上春樹 石黒一雄 東野圭吾 平野啓一郎

河野至恩 早稲田大学 辛島 由尾瞳

産経新聞 文化部 海老沢類


村田沙耶香 川上未映子 松田青子 小川洋子 多和田葉子 津島佑子 桐野夏生 恩田陸

村上春樹 石黒一雄 平野啓一郎 東野圭吾

河野至恩

早稲田大学 辛島 由尾瞳

産経新聞 文化部 海老沢類

左右社 2005年設立の、人文書・文芸書を中心に刊行する出版社

ダリアン・リーダー（Darian Leader）
ロンドン在住の精神分析家、コラムニスト。ローハンプトン大学名誉客員教授。ケンブリッジ大学にて哲学を学んだ後、パリに
て科学史を学ぶ傍ら、精神分析家としての研鑽を積む。Centre for Freudian Analysis and Researchの発起人であり、主要メンバー。著書に『ラカン（ FOR BEGINNERSシリーズ）』（共著）、『本当のところ、なぜ人は病気になるのか？─身体と心の「わかりやすくない」関係』（共著）、Why Do Women Write More Letters Than They Post?、Promises Lovers Make When It Gets Late、Stealing the Mona Lisa などがある。芸術愛好家としても知られる。

【翻訳】
松本卓也（まつもと・たくや）
1983年高知県生まれ。高知大学医学部卒業、自治医科大学大学院医学研究科修了。博士（医学）。専門は精神病理学。現在、京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科准教授。著書に『人はみな妄想する　ジャック・ラカンと鑑別診断の思想』（青土社、2015年）、『発達障害の時代とラカン派精神分析　〈開かれ〉としての自閉をめぐって』（共著、晃洋書房、2017年）、『創造と狂気の歴史　プラトンからドゥルーズまで』（講談社、2019年）、『心の病気ってなんだろう？』（平凡社、2019年）など。訳書にヤニス・スタヴラカキス『ラカニアン・レフト　ラカン派精神分析と政治理論』（共訳、岩波書店、2017年）がある。

牧瀬英幹（まきせ・ひでもと）
2010年、京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科博士後期課程修了。博士（人間・環境学）。専門は、精神分析、精神病理学、描画療法。現在、中部大学生命健康科学部准教授。著書に、『精神分析と描画─「誕生」と「死」をめぐる無意識の構造をとらえる』（誠信書房、2015年）、『発達障害の時代とラカン派精神分析─〈開かれ〉としての自閉をめぐって─』（編著、晃洋書房、2017年）、『描画療法入門』（編著、誠信書房、2018年）がある。


Mieko Kawakami
Ms Ice Sandwich – novella
Pushkin Press, 2017.
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai.
"How Much Heart" – short story
Granta, 2018.8.
Web. (https://granta.com/how-much-heart/)
Translated by David Boyd.
Breasts and Eggs – novel
Europa Editions, 2020.
Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd.
"Golden Slumbers" – short story
New York Times, 2020. 5.19.
Web. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/opinion/mieko-kawakami-coronavirus-story.html)
Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd.

Seins et oeufs (Breasts and Eggs) – novella + short story
Actes Sud, 2012.
Translated by Patrick Honnoré.
De toutes les nuits les amants (All the Lovers in the Night) – novel
Actes Sud, 2014.
Translated by Patrick Honnoré.
Heaven – novel
Actes Sud​,​ 2016.
Translated by Patrick Honnoré.
J'adore (Longing) – novel
Actes Sud​,​ 2020.
Translated by Patrick Honnoré.


Yoko Ogawa, whose novel “The Memory Police” was a National Book Award finalist last year and is on the shortlist for the International Booker Prize; Sayaka Murata, another Akutagawa Prize winner, for “Convenience Store Woman”; and Hiroko Oyamada, whose debut novel, “The Factory,” was published in English in December.

Recent translations have brought us work from established greats: Yuko Tsushima (“Territory of Light”), Yoko Tawada (“The Emissary”), Yoko Ogawa (“The Memory Police”) and Hiromi Kawakami (“The Ten Loves of Nishino”). Then there’s the current generation of young writers, a fearsomely talented group that includes Sayaka Murata (“Convenience Store Woman”), Yukiko Motoya (“The Lonesome Bodybuilder”), Hiroko Oyamada (“The Factory”) and now Mieko Kawakami, with “Breasts and Eggs,” her first novel to be translated into English

English Japan

村田沙耶香 多和田葉子 小川洋子 川上未映子 松田青子 恩田陸

In the literary world, too, Japanese women are carving out an increasingly prominent role. “Breasts and Eggs” won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, and Kawakami has joined a growing list of Japanese women whose work is being translated and gaining attention in the West. They include Yoko Ogawa, whose novel “The Memory Police” was a National Book Award finalist last year and is on the shortlist for the International Booker Prize; Sayaka Murata, another Akutagawa Prize winner, for “Convenience Store Woman”; and Hiroko Oyamada, whose debut novel, “The Factory,” was published in English in December.

Recent translations have brought us work from established greats: Yuko Tsushima (“Territory of Light”), Yoko Tawada (“The Emissary”), Yoko Ogawa (“The Memory Police”) and Hiromi Kawakami (“The Ten Loves of Nishino”). Then there’s the current generation of young writers, a fearsomely talented group that includes Sayaka Murata (“Convenience Store Woman”), Yukiko Motoya (“The Lonesome Bodybuilder”), Hiroko Oyamada (“The Factory”) and now Mieko Kawakami, with “Breasts and Eggs,” her first novel to be translated into English.

In Japan, Kawakami (no relation to Hiromi Kawakami) is already a literary sensation. Like Murakami — who has enthusiastically endorsed her work — she too has a loose and colloquial style. But unlike her forebear, Kawakami writes with a bracing lack of sentimentality, particularly when describing the lives of women. One character terms her mother “free labor” with a vagina. The narrator, Natsu, a writer, says sex with her former boyfriend felt “like somebody had slipped a black bag over my head.”

Focusing almost exclusively on female characters and spaces, “Breasts and Eggs” often made me think of Tsushima’s “Territory of Light.” Although tonally distinct, both novels describe single working-class motherhood and small urban apartments in unflinching detail. Writing 30 years apart, both authors reveal the ways in which those circumstances in turn shape the inner lives of their characters.

“Breasts and Eggs” underlines this connection by placing the female form at its center. Kawakami writes with unsettling precision about the body — its discomforts, its appetites, its smells and secretions. And she is especially good at capturing its longings, those in this novel being at once obsessive and inchoate, and in one way or another about transformation.

Image
In the novel’s first part, Natsu’s sister, Makiko, has traveled to Tokyo from Osaka to consult a doctor about breast augmentation. It’s a subject Makiko has deeply researched, and she expounds at length about surgical procedures, outcomes, concerns: “‘You see the part about the fat injections?’ she asked. ‘The only reason they say they’re safe is because the fat comes from your own body, but they still have to open all these holes in you.’”
That singular focus on cosmetics is questioned not only by Natsu but also by Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko, who is herself going through puberty, its series of bodily changes leaving her both mute and enraged. Natsu starts to see her sister differently, as an object of pity. “It actually made me sad,” she says. “It was the same feeling you get at a train station, or in a hospital, or on the street, when you stop at a safe distance away from someone who can’t seem to help but talk and talk, whether or not anyone is there to listen.”

Cut to the second part of the novel, and it’s Natsu who’s in the grips of her own obsession. Single and desperate to have a child, she enters the labyrinthine bureaucracy of sperm donation. The process thrusts her into psychological isolation from her loved ones (she hesitates to discuss her desire for motherhood with family or acquaintances, lest they react to her the way she did to Makiko’s surgery) and from society at large (she’s a single woman exploring sperm donation in a culture where that is far from the norm).

“Breasts and Eggs” was originally published in Japan as a novella in 2008, before Kawakami expanded it for this current edition. Book 1, which takes place over a handful of days as Makiko and her daughter visit Natsu, has the feel of a stand-alone work. This effect is partially temporal and partially tonal: Here, Natsu possesses some level of certainty, at least about Makiko’s mania and what it says about female identity.

In Book 2 Natsu is far more uncertain, as she turns to her own desires and struggles with whether or not to honor them. It’s here that the novel releases the narrative tightness of its first half and becomes increasingly discursive: “If I tried to delve below the surface, my thoughts dispersed,” she thinks, pouring herself a glass of whiskey as she reads about infertility. “All the books and blogs catered to couples. What about the rest of us, who were alone and planned to stay that way? Who has the right to have a child? Does not having a partner or not wanting to have sex nullify this right?”

Kawakami’s prose is supple and casual, unbothered with the kinds of sentences routinely described as “luminous.” But into these stretches of plain speech she regularly drops phrases that made me giddy with pleasure. Natsu’s fridge is stocked so sparely and haphazardly it “looked like a lost and found for condiments.” Meanwhile, outside, “spring came and went, like someone opening the door to an empty room only to slam it shut again.”

Osaka haunts the novel, in Natsu’s memories of its landscape and cuisine, but above all in Kawakami’s use of its regional dialect, Osaka-ben. I grew up hearing my father speak in dialect whenever he was with a fellow Osakan. In those moments, I heard the incredible elasticity of the Japanese language — maybe of all language — the way its rhythms can suddenly realign, its tones shift. The politesse that I tended to associate with traditional Japanese disappeared into a language that was raucous and full of swagger.

Throughout the skillful translation by Sam Bett and David Boyd, we get indications of this code switching, and at one point Natsu’s novelist friend Rika riffs on the relationship between a narrative and its idiom: “The real thing, the real Osaka dialect, isn’t even about communicating,” she says. “It’s a contest. Somehow, you’re both in the audience and on the stage. … Language is always art, but in order to achieve its highest form, the language itself — intonation, grammar, speed, everything — had to mutate over time.”

“Breasts and Eggs” is about this kind of mutation, this irrepressibility. What exactly is so wrong about Makiko wanting breast implants? For Natsu, it’s the shamelessness of her sister’s fixation that’s so alienating. But that shamelessness is also what gives Makiko’s desire — and eventually Natsu’s as well — its dignity. Its brazenness, its unruliness, its full expression. That’s radical — and not just in Japan.