Interview with TOMO Contributor Hart Larrabee

Hart Larrabee (translator of the Tomo story “Anton and Kiyohime” by Fumio Takano) was born in New York State and majored in Japanese at Carleton College in Minnesota. He also earned postgraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Hawaii. He has lived primarily in Japan. A full-time freelance translator, he currently lives with his family in Nagano Prefecture.

Hart Larrabee (right) with author Fumio Takano

Tell us a bit about your background and connection to Japan. 

I started college in 1985. I had decided to go to Carleton College in Minnesota, which had both a foreign language proficiency requirement and a strong emphasis on off-campus study. Although I had studied French in high school I never really took to it, something I attributed in part to the many English cognates that enabled me to stumble through by speaking as if I had marbles in my mouth. While planning what college courses to take, I decided I should find a language as far removed from English as possible, and preferably one with a different writing system to deprive myself the temptation of such shortcuts. It was the 40th anniversary of the end of WWII so Japan was in the news a lot, and since Carleton didn't offer Chinese at the time I decided to take Japanese. A fall semester course in Japanese aesthetics taught by an American designer of Japanese gardens, David Slawson, hooked me on the culture and I really enjoyed the puzzle of the language itself. I ended up spending my junior year in Kyoto, majoring in Japanese, and then spending more time in Japan immediately after graduation. 

What led you to work in translation?

After spending a couple of years as an artist's apprentice in Kyoto, I returned to the US to study communication at the University of Pennsylvania and then got an MBA at the University of Hawaii. Through an internship, this led to work with the organizing committee for the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, then the Japanese Olympic Committee, and then the organizing committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Along the way I had picked up translation jobs here and there. When I decided to get married in 2002 and move to Nagano to live near my wife's family, freelance translation became my main occupation (although I have continued to work with international sporting events when the opportunity arises).

What attracted you to this story of Takano’s? Do you have experience with Japanese dance or Nagauta or Russian culture? Are you familiar with Ueno Park and some of the Tokyo settings in this story? 

Kyoko Ibe's production of Dojoji: A Forbidden Journey

The artist with whom I apprenticed in Kyoto, Kyoko Ibe, worked primarily in paper, especially handmade paper produced in Tokushima. Her studio produced a range of products (lamps, jewelry, stationery) as well as large-scale installations and other works of art. During the time I was there she embarked on a theatrical project: an experimental reworking of the Dojoji story in collaboration with a Norwegian dancer and a Japanese noh actor for which she created the sets, props, and costumes. I stitched together the paper kimono and long court trousers worn in the role of the shirabyoshi dancer, and went along on the Scandinavian tour as interpreter, stagehand, and one of two costumers to help dress the noh actor. 

Noh actor Akira Matsui in Dojoji: A Forbidden Journey

So the Dojoji story is one that resonates deeply with a formative experience from my early years in Japan and I was very interested in translating it when the opportunity arose. I hesitated, though, and by the time I responded the story had been offered to another translator. Fortunately for me, that translator was ultimately unable to take part so I got a second chance.

This was a challenging story to translate for a number of reasons. What were some of the trickiest aspects? 

Although the language used is pretty straightforward (with the notable exception of the nagauta), there is a lot going on. There is the love affair between Anton and Kiyohime, with its passion and betrayal, alternate realities, time travel experiments, Latvia-Russian relations, and even a little bit of Tokyo travelogue.

One of the biggest challenges is that as originally published in Japanese, the story was about twice as long as Tomo space restrictions would allow. The author, Fumio Takano, reworked the story to fit the space constraints, but we were pushing the limit and I needed to be acutely conscious of space limitations throughout. Holly Thompson, Sako Ikegami and particularly Lynne Riggs helped me tighten things up and offered numerous solutions more elegant than what I had originally come up with.

Finding a voice for Olegs was also tricky. In the original, he speaks Japanese fluently but in an adult or classroom register, not the voice of a typical teenager. There was really no good way to convey this nuance in the translation, and in my early drafts he seemed unnaturally stiff. I tried to loosen up his dialogue in the sections where he speaks with his uncle, but I suspect that any contrast with the way he talks when speaking with Kyuan is barely perceptible.

The nagauta sections were also fun to work with. The text itself comes straight from the Kabuki version of the Dojo-ji story, so I was able to find some existing translations and commentaries on the web that helped me confirm that I understood the original well enough. Since this wasn't an academic translation I was free to leave out bits that were distracting and try to shape the translation to best fit the story within the general framework of what was in the original.

Can you describe the translation process with this particular story? 

It was an enormous benefit to be able to consult with Takano about how to interpret particular passages, and to have her review the translation and make suggestions about how to address areas where I had questions. She was very engaged and I felt it was important to keep her informed of changes to the translation as it evolved. It was a very hands-on process, and it cannot have been easy for her to have other people mucking about with her story—especially given the need to make some adjustments for a younger readership and to carve away another 10% or so from the translation as our deadline approached.

Do you have any message for teens in Tohoku?

I have really struggled to find something to say. I cannot possibly know what it is like to be you, in the aftermath of such upheaval. But I hope you won't let the disaster define you. It shouldn't dictate how you see yourself. The rest of the world may be quick to use the disaster as a convenient shorthand for deciding what to think, but I hope you won't let them set the terms. You can decide for yourself what your experience will mean in your life. Trust your family, trust your friends, and trust yourself.

Tokyo Tomo Launch on March 10, 2012

On March 10, the evening before the one-year anniversary of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction--An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories was officially released and launched with a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators event in Tokyo. Present were 16 contributors, including several translator-author pairs. All read excerpts from their stories to give the audience a sense of the great range of stories included in the anthology.

Here are a few photos of the contributors who were able to attend the Tokyo launch:

Back row, L to R: John Paul Catton, Juliet Winters Carpenter, Deborah Iwabuchi, Margi Napper, Louise George Kittaka, Ann Slater, Charles De Wolf, Trevor Kew, Hart Larrabee  Front Row, L to R: Arie Nashiya, Yuko Katakawa, Holly Thompson, Sako Ikegami, Fumio Takano, Leza Lowitz, Mariko Nagai

Louise George Kittaka, author, and Holly Thompson, editor

Juliet Winters Carpenter, translator, and Arie Nashiya, author

Sako Ikegami, translator

Fumio Takano, author, and Hart Larrabee, translator

Yuko Katakawa, author, and Deborah Iwabuchi, translator

It was wonderful for so many contributors to meet face to face and for translators to finally meet the authors whose works they'd translated. And the Tomo books sold out. Hooray!

Looking forward to the Boston Tomo launch at the Boston Children's Museum on March 23.

Interview with TOMO Contributor Fumio Takano

Fumio Takano

Fumio Takano (author of the Tomo story “Anton and Kiyohime”, translated by Hart Larrabee) is best known for works of alternative history with a science fiction twist. Her debut novel, Mujika makiina (Musica Machina), was selected as one of Japan's best 30 works of science fiction from the 1990s. Her latest project is compiling Jikan wa dare mo matte kurenai (Time Waits for No Man), an anthology of East European science fiction and fantastica from the first decade of the 21st century. It brings together 12 stories from 10 countries, each translated directly into Japanese from its original language. Visit Fumio Takano's website.

Have you spent time in Russia or studied the language or culture?

My interest in Russia was sparked by literature and music. As a teenager I was interested in classical music and in European (and American) literature, but it was the music and literature of Russia that appealed to me the most. I was 19 when I first went to Russia—way back when it was still the Soviet Union! I studied European history at university but decided against majoring in Russian history. The Russian language was just too difficult for me. My husband, though, is an expert on Russian films. (He’s Japanese <g>.)

The Kremlin, shirabyoshi dance, nagauta, a dragon, time travel—there are so many fascinating elements woven together in this story. What was the inspiration for this story?

The legend of Anchin and Kiyohime is an old Japanese tale that takes place during the Heian period, roughly a thousand years ago. It is the story of a princess named Kiyohime who is abandoned by a priest named Anchin. Filled with bitterness, she transforms into a flaming serpent and chases after him. When she finds him hiding beneath a bell at Dojo-ji Temple, she burns him to death inside it.

Both the Noh and Kabuki performance traditions include variations of a sequel called Dojo-ji. In this story, a ceremony is being held at Dojo-ji Temple to dedicate a new bell and to pray for the repose of Kiyohime’s soul. A beautiful girl, a shirabyoshi, suddenly appears and beings to dance, and is soon revealed to be Kiyohime’s ghost. This is one of my favorite Kabuki plays, a very intense story. Ever since I first saw the great broken bell at the Kremlin in my teens, I knew I wanted to incorporate it in my own version of the Dojo-ji tale someday. I also wanted to rescue Kiyohime from her tragic love. 

Fumio Takano standing by the Tsar Bell in Moscow

A few years ago I began working on an anthology to present literary works from Russia and Eastern Europe to Japan. During the course of the project I began to feel I wanted to write a story that expressed my hope for greater friendship between Eastern Europe and Japan, which still do not know each other very well, and between Japan and Russia, and Russia and Eastern Europe, where there remains so much political enmity. I remembered the bell at the Kremlin and the Dojo-ji story and could see immediately how the whole thing would fit together. Perhaps unconsciously I had been mulling over the story all along.

Can you describe your process for developing your stories? Do you usually start with a historical element and go from there? Or do you start with a character or an incident? How do you grow your science fiction tales?

My creative work is almost always driven by history and art. I think when my own personal thoughts, interests, positions, concerns, love, and other feelings come into contact with different kinds of art or what people have done in the past it creates a kind of chemical reaction. As for where the structure of my stories comes from, this is something I cannot really explain. My writing is inspired by what I call “dispatches from outer space” <g>.

Ever since my teenage years I’ve always enjoyed American science fiction and fantasy. I’ve seen the Star Wars movies countless times since they were first screened in Japan in 1979. I grew up reading the works of authors such as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Sir Arthur C. Clarke (who was actually British), and Philip K. Dick. I began listening to classical music because of John Williams’ wonderful soundtracks for movies like Star Wars and Superman. For me, sci-fi was something that just came naturally during my teenage years.

I don’t consciously think of myself as a sci-fi writer. But just as you always remember the language you learn when you’re young, before I knew it I found myself incorporating sci-fi techniques. Sci-fi makes it possible to address hidden human potentials and philosophical issues that just can’t be expressed in a story set in the everyday world of reality. Sci-fi isn’t just entertainment or pulp fiction. There are works of science fiction that have real literary merit, and I hope young readers are paying attention. May the force be with you!

You are working on an anthology of Eastern European science fiction. Can you tell us about this project?

Almost all of foreign literature translated into Japanese is from the United States. When it comes to foreign movies or foreign literature, many Japanese people are only familiar with American works. Russia and Europe, though, have long-established traditions of literary excellence. There are any number of “must-read” classics, with a whole new generation of outstanding writers today. Nevertheless, European literature, and that of the former communist bloc in particular, is barely known in Japan. The biggest reasons publishers don’t want to publish European literature is that there is no money in it and because it’s difficult to translate across multiple languages. For a long time I’ve felt I had to do something about this.

In Russia and Europe people almost never use the term “science fiction.” They talk about “fantastica,” which incorporates sci-if, high fantasy, horror, theater of the absurd, and fantasy, and is considered a genre with high literary and artistic merit. The works of Stanislaw Lem, Franz Kafka, Mircea Eliade, Karel Čapek (father of the concept of “robots”), Mikhail Bulgakov, and Milorad Pavić are all fantastica. Russian and East European literature has a strong element of fantastica in general, and there are many outstanding works, so I thought that introducing Japanese readers to works from this genre would be a good place to start.

Published late last year, the resulting Eastern European anthology includes short stories from ten countries (Austria, Romania, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, and Serbia), each translated by experts in the original language. All of the stories are recent works written in the 21st century. I hope to publish a Russian anthology this year or next, and in the future perhaps anthologies for Western Europe and the Baltic Sea States.

Do you have any message for teens in Tohoku?

The damage, both physical and psychological, that the earthquake did to our nation is just immeasurable. My parents in Ibaraki were also directly affected. But people have the wisdom, not found in other animals, to turn sad and difficult events into food for the future. Some American friends decided that instead of just collecting donations they would turn the tragedy into an opportunity for American kids to learn more about Japan, and put together the Tomo Project. I’m sure this book will generate interest in Japan, its culture, and its way of thinking among the young Americans who will shoulder their country’s future. This will be very useful in ensuring a future of goodwill between Japan and the United States. And so, to young friends in the affected areas, I say that I hope you know you are contributing to the future of the world. What power!

The pain and sadness will not disappear right away, and there are a lot of problems that still need to be solved. But let’s all join hands and help each other as we walk into the future!

And also a note for young American friends:

Today America has incredible influence in the world, which means you have a great responsibility. If you have a sense of fairness, you can be heroes. Please take a real look at the world. Please learn foreign languages, and learn about other cultures and peoples. TV and the Internet can supply you with information, but literature offers much more: wisdom and philosophy. Literature is like a stargate to a wonderful world.

If you are interested in world literature, here are some books I recommend: How to Read World Literature (How to Study Literature) and The Longman Anthology of World Literature, The Compact Edition. And if you are interested in Japanese fiction and animation, check out Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime. These books may be a bit challenging, but they’re very exciting.

Finally, I must thank you for your friendship, help, donations, encouragement, and prayers for Japan!