Discussion Group – Translating Haruki Murakami

Image of book cover with the words 'who we are Reading when we're Reading Murakami

Live-streamed via Microsoft Teams on 22 February 2021

During this event, the Discussion Group will host David Karashima who will speak about his 2020 book Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami. The book chronicles Murakami’s relationship with the translators who produced the first versions of his novels in English, as well as the editors and illustrators who collaborated to create the translated versions of his works. It comments on the power dynamic between translator and author, as well as the idiosyncrasies of Japanese-English literary translation. 

Bio: David Karashima has translated a range of contemporary Japanese authors into English, including Hitomi Kanehara, Hisaki Matsuura, and Shinji Ishii. He coedited the anthology March Was Made of Yarn: Writers Respond to the Japanese Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Meltdown and is coeditor of Pushkin Press’s Contemporary Japanese Novellas series and Stranger Press’s Keshiki series. He is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Waseda University in Tokyo. 

All Discussion Group sessions require registration. Please fill in this form by the Sunday preceding the event you would like to attend: https://forms.gle/M3CafZTEMF2PECkb7.