Translation and the Borders of Languages

My author copies of the Japanese translation of Book Uncle and Me just arrived in the mail. I can’t read a word, of course, but In the last few months, I’ve had the chance to engage in an interesting and unusual correspondence with the translator.

More process talk will follow with Keiko Nagatomo, translator—about how this story set in India, written in English, traveled into its Japanese edition. How do you take a story from one language into another? What changes? What stays the same? How do you decide that?

Keiko’s questions as she did this work were a fascinating peek for me into the small details of the choices translators face as they get into the thickets of someone else’s story. I’m looking forward to hearing what Keiko tells me about how this story of mine traveled across linguistic borders to enter its Japanese translation.