University Institute of Comparative Culture for SORW

Author as Ultimate Authority: Checking My Translations with Murakami and Sōseki

Jay Rubin

17:00-18:30

November 11, 2016

Room 921, 9F, Library Building

Sophia University

Different sets of problems confront translators of living and dead authors, especially when the
translator looks to the author for the authoritative interpretation of the text. The speaker cites
his experience translating both Murakami Haruki and Natsume Sōseki.

Jay Rubin was Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of Washington from 1975 to 1993 and
at Harvard University from 1993 to 2006. In retirement, he lives near Seattle, Washington, where he
continues to write and translate, working on Haruki Murakami and other modern Japanese writers. His
novel, The Sun Gods, set in Seattle during the Second World War, was published in 2015 and
translated into Japanese as Hibi no hikari by Motoyuki Shibata and Shunsuke Hiratsuka.

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