the bible in the dialect of tohoku earthquake surivors

"Tsunami Bibles" help Japan to understand the tragedy 3 thousand copies of the Bible translated in the local dialect which survived the tidal wave that enveloped the country on March 11,are back on sale. They give an answer to those who suffered and will help the publishing house back on its feet.

Photo shows stacks of the Kesen-dialect Bibles that survived the tsunami. When the publisher was ready to sell the slightly damaged books at a discount, Masahiro Kudo, deputy director of the Miura Ayako Literature Museum Foundation advised him not to hesitate selling them at full price, saying "They are very precious copies. They demonstrate the love of God for the survivors." Sales will help the publisher rebuild his devastated business.

Click to read full article on AsiaNews.it (English, 英語) or here on asahi.com (Japanese, 日本語）
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free offer for miura fans

KAIREI (Asahi Shimbun Press, 1981) is one of Miura Ayako's greatest historical works. It was once made into a bilingual feature-length film and, in recent years, has been performed in several locations throughout the world as a stage play. (see details in this post)

In 1993, my English translation of Kairei was published by Dawn Press under the title Hidden Ranges. It has long since been out-of-print. With English translations of Miura's works so rare and difficult to come by, I've decided to offer an updated and slightly abridged version of my original translation at no cost to readers of this blog and members of the Miura Ayako Book Club on Facebook.

If you are interested in reading Hidden Ranges, please become a follower or subscriber to this blog and/or a member of the Miura Ayako Book Club on Facebook. Then email your request to the email address on my blog profile (click my photo in the left side bar of this page). I will send you an email attachment of the text as a PDF file so that you can either print it out yourself or read it on a digital reading device such as Kindle. I will expect you to honor my copyright and you will be asked to do your utter best to prevent the manuscript from being misused.

There are 28 chapters and various extras such as Table of Contents, Description of Characters, etc, which add up to just under 400 pages, so I haven't figured out yet whether to send them in parts or as a whole. If you have a preference or advice, please let me know.

Please feel free to ask me questions about this offer!
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the tongue-cut sparrow's christmas

Among Miura's many, many works, there is one (and only one) play script. It was written to be performed at Christmas to an audience of children. In January of 2010, I wrote a post titled The Tongue-Cut Sparrow, Revisited in which I introduced this play in detail. To make sense of this update, please read that post now, if you haven't yet done so.

About twenty years ago, when we lived in Osaka, I translated the story into English and added illustrations so that my husband could use it in English classes and Christmas events at the college where he was teaching. More recently, I converted my translation back into simple Japanese, which I combined with my illustrations to turn it into a kamishibai (story board) for reading aloud to the children at our church here in Sapporo.

I have just learned that Miura's play was published as a picture book in 2008! Click here to see the listing on Amazon Japan and here to see the listing on Amazon US. It appears to be a bilingual version with both English and Japanese text. The English title is Christmas at the Sparrow's Inn and the name of the translator is Arden Lewis. I am not familiar with the translator, and I haven't yet seen the actual book, but if you have, please post a comment below. If you could track down a copy, I'm sure it would make the most awesome Christmas gift for the children in your life, especially if they understand Japanese or English or both.
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j.philip gabriel visits hokkaido

J. Philip Gabriel, professor of Japanese literature and head of the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona, has translated the works of such noted Japanese writers as Murakami Haruki and Oe Kenzaburo. Phil first came to my attention several years ago, when I came across his book Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature. He spends a good part of the book discussing the works of Miura Ayako (specifically Hyoten and Shiokari Pass) in a way that convinced me I had found that rare Western academic who "got" what Miura was all about and actually valued it.

Through our sporadic email correspondence, I learned that Phil was interested in writing about Miura Ayako's novel Juko, the last novel she wrote before her death in 1999. Imagine how excited I was when he emailed me earlier this year to say he would be making his first trip to Hokkaido in June! Unfortunately, I was unable to accompany Phil and his wife Junko to Asahikawa, Miura's homeground. But they went to the trouble of visiting me at my home in Sapporo, where we had a stimulating discussion on how to get more exposure for Miura's works in the West.


In Asahikawa, Phil visited the Miura Ayako Literature Museum where he had the good fortune to run into Ayako's husband Mitsuyo. He told me the trip hardened his resolve to write about Juko, which was very good to hear. Having a translator and scholar of his caliber committed to writing about Miura's works is a huge encouragement to me. I'm hoping that between the two of us, and with the support of our various networks, we will have more success in introducing Miura lit to English readers than we might have had on own own.
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for miura fans in india!

Yoshimitsu Hasegawa, the head of the Miura Ayako Dokushokai (Miura Ayako Readers Association) will be in India on May 7 to give a talk about Miura Ayako's works and what she had to say on the subject of what it means to live.


Location: Delhi Bible Church, V20 Green Park Extn.
Time: May 7 (Saturday), 2011 15:00~17:00

Contact Ms. Yoshida by May 4 (Wednesday) for further information:
email her at grace011205@yahoo.co.jp
or telephone her at 97-1177-7984
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translators who blazed the trail (2)

In 1991, OMF Books published an English translation of Yuki no Arubamu under the title A Heart of Winter. The translators were Mark Caprio and Clyde Moneyhun. They did a great job of it-- the translation makes for smooth reading. It is a slim, pocket-sized book, easy to give as a gift or carry around and read in spare moments. The copy on the back cover says: "This novel captures the depth of hurt and need for healing and wholeness... [it] illustrates, without maddening pat answers, that the bitter pain of abandonment, ridicule, betrayal and revenge need not be the final experience... Above all, this is a story of hope!"

Two months ago, one of my several attempts to contact the translators by email finally reached Mark Caprio, and I was able to ask him about his experience translating this book. This is part of what he shared with me:

We started out just looking for something to translate. Clyde and I had met at an Aikido dojo in Nagoya. By coincidence we had both studied at the University of Arizona in Tucson a few years prior to our meeting. I was an avid reader of Japanese literature at the time, making my way through Kawabata, Endo, Sono Ayako, and others.

Clyde was rather new to Japan, arriving after having completed studies in creative writing. I stumbled on Miura Ayako through a Brother George Pope. We were taught at Nanzan University and often talked over lunch about different things. I believe he mentioned Miura to me. Since he could not read Japanese I said that I would see if I could translate one of her books. Both Clyde and I were after the experience of completing a translation anyway. I remember that it was Hyoten that I first read. The story moved me to the extent of wanting to translate it. I wrote Miura asking for permission and she answered by saying that it was already being translated. Flattered that she had even answered my letter, I decided to press my luck and ask her to suggest a book to translate. She recommended her latest book, Yuki no Arubamu [album of snow]. I read it and talked with Clyde about it. We decided to translate it.

Our division of labor broke down as follows: I put her words into English, Clyde molded my crude English into prose, and I checked to ensure that his writing honored Miura's original Japanese. We had been given us a deadline--which I believe we just missed--and a contact in Tokyo who would check our work. She also had a second person, a native English speaker, in Sapporo read our manuscript. After passing the above checks we had to find a publisher. We tried Tuttle [but they turned it down] . Miura's Tokyo agent then recommended we try OMF based in Singapore [who agreed to publish it].

Unfortunately, A Heart of Winter is out of print. But like other out-of-print English translations of Miura's works, it can sometimes be found for sale on online used-book sites, so I encourage you to look for it if you don't already have a copy.

translators who blazed the trail (1)

The first book by Miura Ayako that I ever read in English translation was The Wind is Howling (InterVarsity Press, 1977), an abridged translation of Michi ariki, the first in Miura's autobiographical trilogy that includes Michi ariki, Kono tsuchi no utsuwa o mo, and Hikari aru uchi ni.

I had been reading Miura's works in the original Japanese for some time by then, and was nurturing my own dream of becoming a professional translator. Totally impressed by the smooth and authentic readability of The Wind is Howling, I immediately became curious about the translator, Valerie Griffiths. But it wasn't until recently (over thirty years later!) that I made an effort to contact her, and even in the age of the internet, this wasn't easy. Finally, one of my email queries reached her, and I was honored to receive a reply from Valerie herself! What a thrill this was!

I'd like to share a little of what Valerie told me about how she came to translate Michi ariki:

My husband and I served in Japan with OMF from 1958-1967 when OMF asked us to move to our international HQ in Singapore. [...] While in Singapore we began to hear about Mrs. Miura and when I started a small lending library of Japanese books I included hers. I had never achieved the 1800 kanji for reading. When a Japanese child was dying I lent some books to his parents who were spending all their time at the hospital. His father got engrossed in Michi ariki and began relaying the story to me. I felt it was much more effective to translate a book like that than to write English books about Japan so I started translating in my spare time.

Valerie went on to say how the limitations of her Japanese reading ability made the task time-consuming and arduous. But with the help of a friend who offered to write reading clues next to the harder kanji, she managed to complete the translation. That was the only Miura book she ever translated, and she says she could never do it again. But I --along with many other Miura fans-- will always be thankful that she did this wonderful work.

The Wind is Howling is out-of-print, but can sometimes be found for sale through online used book shops. Keep searching, and you may uncover this treasure yet.
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