Reading comments - Ryu

Juliet Winters Carpenter's journey as a translator is something I deeply relate to. She talks about how she fell in love with the challenge of capturing the subtle differences in meaning between languages, like trying to express the Japanese phrase poka poka in English. It’s these kinds of nuances that hooked her, and I understand why. Translation, to her, is like coloring in a picture—adding life and creativity to something while staying within the lines of the original work. But it’s not just a mechanical process; it’s about diving deep into the emotions, the culture, and the meaning behind the words. The way she describes “jumping into the pond” of a text really resonates with me, as it shows that translating is about fully immersing yourself in both languages and cultures. You bring something new into the world, and that’s where the real satisfaction lies. 

When Carpenter took on A True Novel by Minae Mizumura, she embraced the full collaborative experience of translation. Working closely with the author, they didn’t just focus on translating words—they aimed to capture the soul of the story, blending Western and Japanese influences seamlessly. It wasn’t always easy; they spent hours together reworking passages to ensure that the cultural nuances made sense to Western readers while staying true to the Japanese context. For example, Carpenter and Mizumura had to decide how much to explain about things like Japanese social norms that might confuse Western readers, all while keeping the flow of the novel intact. This project showed that translation is as much about cultural interpretation as it is about language, and that’s what makes it such a rewarding, creative process.