the spices of life?
May. 15th, 2011 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomi Making bolognese sauce, mostly Mark Bittman with some improvisations. (He doesn't put any spices in at all. I wonder why not. I do. It seems to work okay.) Right now it's simmering away and making the apartment smell wonderful and me wish I hadn't waited until seven-thirty to start cooking.
Here are some of the things I'd like to translate into English, in absolutely random order.
--Yuriko's letters to Yoshiko, especially the 1929 summer letters from London. I've posted one or two excerpts here. As social history, women's history, literary history, and love letters, they're up there.
--Two chronicles of studying in Finland, by Inagaki Miharu and Takahashi Erika, just because they're fun.
--Hasuike Kaoru's essays about traveling to Seoul, some years after repatriation to Japan from twenty-four years as an abductee in North Korea. Obviously interesting material, but Hasuike comes off as a good writer and a genuinely interesting, likeable guy, with a wry sense of humor and a sharp eye.
--Kurosaka Ai's field notes on a year with the Buraku Liberation League, in the form of emails between Kurosaka, a grad student, and her advisor. I could write a whole entry just on the problems of this book, but it's still interesting to read in terms of what you learn about the BLL and buraku culture, not to mention the hows and how-nots of graduate sociology.
--Kido Hisae's book about her father, one of the Japanese orphans left to be raised by Chinese after the Japanese pulled out of Manchuria in 1945. I don't really know enough about China to translate it, but it's very fine work.
--Nakajima Atsushi's letters home to his family from the South Pacific, because they always make me cry. Atsushi was a well-known writer in the 30's and 40's who died far too young.
--Miura Shion, just because she's extremely cool.
--Ii Kei's book featuring Ishikawa Takuboku (a famous poet in the early 20th c., who also died much too young) as a detective, and his friend Kindaichi Kyosuke (a linguist and lexicographer) as his sidekick. I always have trouble remembering this book is actually fiction, and wonder what Kindaichi's descendants think of it.
--Yonehara Mari's essays about her childhood going to a Russian school in Prague, and her novel based on the same experience. She was a superb Russian-Japanese interpreter who died a few years back, and a riveting writer.
--Mori Mayumi's essays on literature and child-raising, among other things--funny, serious, uniquely expressive.
--Kitao Ryonosuke's fabulous book on his travels through the Osaka of the 1930s.
And so on and so forth. If someone would just pay me to sit at home and translate all day...
well, okay, if someone did just that, I would probably end up lonely and depressed. But man, there's so much that wants doing. Somebody find me the happy medium.
Here are some of the things I'd like to translate into English, in absolutely random order.
--Yuriko's letters to Yoshiko, especially the 1929 summer letters from London. I've posted one or two excerpts here. As social history, women's history, literary history, and love letters, they're up there.
--Two chronicles of studying in Finland, by Inagaki Miharu and Takahashi Erika, just because they're fun.
--Hasuike Kaoru's essays about traveling to Seoul, some years after repatriation to Japan from twenty-four years as an abductee in North Korea. Obviously interesting material, but Hasuike comes off as a good writer and a genuinely interesting, likeable guy, with a wry sense of humor and a sharp eye.
--Kurosaka Ai's field notes on a year with the Buraku Liberation League, in the form of emails between Kurosaka, a grad student, and her advisor. I could write a whole entry just on the problems of this book, but it's still interesting to read in terms of what you learn about the BLL and buraku culture, not to mention the hows and how-nots of graduate sociology.
--Kido Hisae's book about her father, one of the Japanese orphans left to be raised by Chinese after the Japanese pulled out of Manchuria in 1945. I don't really know enough about China to translate it, but it's very fine work.
--Nakajima Atsushi's letters home to his family from the South Pacific, because they always make me cry. Atsushi was a well-known writer in the 30's and 40's who died far too young.
--Miura Shion, just because she's extremely cool.
--Ii Kei's book featuring Ishikawa Takuboku (a famous poet in the early 20th c., who also died much too young) as a detective, and his friend Kindaichi Kyosuke (a linguist and lexicographer) as his sidekick. I always have trouble remembering this book is actually fiction, and wonder what Kindaichi's descendants think of it.
--Yonehara Mari's essays about her childhood going to a Russian school in Prague, and her novel based on the same experience. She was a superb Russian-Japanese interpreter who died a few years back, and a riveting writer.
--Mori Mayumi's essays on literature and child-raising, among other things--funny, serious, uniquely expressive.
--Kitao Ryonosuke's fabulous book on his travels through the Osaka of the 1930s.
And so on and so forth. If someone would just pay me to sit at home and translate all day...
well, okay, if someone did just that, I would probably end up lonely and depressed. But man, there's so much that wants doing. Somebody find me the happy medium.
