Keynote Speakers

Iwaki Kei

Women Who ‘Slice Open’ Language With ever-accelerating globalization, changes to the faces of the characters in my book, Sayōnara, orenji (Farewell, My Orange), are now taking place ten years after its publication. As mobility intensifies around the world, more and more people are required to replace their own language with something else.

Why do people abandon their first language and choose another? What compelling desire arises to replace the pain of forsaking one’s mother tongue? I look forward in the brief time available to exploring these issues with my audience.

Delivered in Japanese and simulatenously interpreted into English.

Bio

Born in Osaka in 1971, Iwaki Kei graduated from university before leaving Japan for Australia. Her debut novel Sayōnara, orenji (Farewell, My Orange) won the Dazai Osamu Prize in 2013 and the 8th Ōe Kenzaburō Prize in 2014. Since that time, Iwaki has continued writing Japanese language novels on the theme of ‘people and language’. Her works include Masato, awarded the 32th Tsubota Jōji Literary Prize, Matt and Saundo Posuto (Sound Post). Her seventh novel M is scheduled for publication by Shūeisha in June 2023. She currently resides in Victoria, Australia.

Meredith McKinney

Crisscrossing Boundaries

The ideal of translation is to bring together two languages and two worlds, so neatly that the seam is invisible. But it is at the jagged intersection of the two that the true work of translation happens, and where its real interest lies. In this talk I want to examine two different experiences of that place of intersection, and what they taught me about the difficulties and possibilities of translation's attempt to cross boundaries.

One is my experience of translating Iwaki Kei's Australian novel Sayōnara Orenji (published in English as Farewell, my Orange), a work whose very theme is the problematic experience of cultural and linguistic boundaries. The other was my early experience of co-translating the poetry of Judith Wright, a poet whose work is deeply rooted in the Australian landscape and the English lyrical tradition. In their very different ways, these two experiences gave me fresh insights into the challenges, limitations and possibilities of translating across the boundaries between Japanese and Australian literature.

Delivered in English and simultaneously interpreted into Japanese.

Bio

Meredith McKinney is a translator of Japanese literature who lives near Braidwood in the southern tablelands of New South Wales. She has published more than 20 translations of literary works, ranging from the earliest Japanese poetry to contemporary fiction. Her translations for Penguin Classics include The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, and Kokoro and Kusamakura by Natsume Sōseki. Her most recent publication is Gazing at the Moon, translations of the poetry of the medieval poet-monk Saigyō, and she is currently working on a translation of Towazugatari, the 14th century memoir of the imperial concubine and later wandering nun Lady Nijō, for Penguin Classics. In 2018 Meredith's translation of Iwaki Kei's novel Sayōnara Orenji was published by Europa Editions. Meredith lived and worked in Japan for 20 years before returning to Australia in 1998, and is currently Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University. She is the daughter of Australian poet and environmental activist Judith Wright, whose work she has co-translated into Japanese.

Arimitsu Yasue

Finishing the “Project of Translating Australian Contemporary Novels into Japanese.” I am a member of the Australian Literary Society of Japan, and participant in the “Project of Translating Australian Contemporary Novels into Japanese.” This project was initiated by Gendai-Kikakushitsu publishers in 2012 with the publication of a Japanese translation of David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon, which was the first book in the series. Gendai-Kikakushitsu had already published A Collection of Australian Contemporary Short Stories—Which Reflect the Multicultural Society of Australia in 2008, with the impetus for this coming in 2001 from Prof. Kate Darian-Smith and myself. Since we both understood the need for teaching materials designed to introduce Australian society and culture to university students in Japan, we decided to translate 16 Australian contemporary short stories into Japanese. When that collection was well accepted by the Japanese readers, the publisher suggested producing ten Australian contemporary novels in Japanese translation in ten years. We formed a committee to select the novels and began the translations. In this lecture, I will discuss how we selected books, aspects of the translation process and the public responses when the translations appeared. Most importantly, I will outline the fruits of our efforts, and the meaning of introducing Australian literature to Japanese readers.

Delivered in Japanese and simultaneously interpreted into English.

Bio

Arimitsu Yasue is Professor Emeritus, Doshisha University in Kyoto. She studied at the Australian National University where she received her master’s degree in 1985 for “Finding a Place: Landscape and the Search for Identity in the Early Novels of Patrick White.” She taught English and Australian literature at Tezukayama Gakuin University in Osaka (1988–1995), and Doshisha University in Kyoto (1995–2014). Before departing for Australia, she had translated a number of Australian and New Zealand short stories into Japanese. Returning to Japan, she co-edited and translated a selection of Australian short stories, published as Diamond Dog: A Collection of Contemporary Australian Short Stories (2008). These reflected the multicultural features of contemporary Australian society. She is currently working on the “Ten-Year-Project” involving the translation of contemporary Australian novels. Seven novels have been published to date, with the eighth scheduled to appear very soon. Besides producing translations, Professor Emeritus Arimitsu is the author of the monograph, Australian Identity: Struggle and Transformation in Australian Literature in 2003 (awarded Australia-Japan Foundation Sir Neil Currie Special Prize in 2003), and has co-edited Contemporary Australian Studies: Literature, History, Film and Media Studies in a Globalizing Age (2017). She was the president of the Australian Studies Association of Japan (2010–2013), and the president of the Australia New Zealand Literary Society of Japan (2014–2018).