Sometimes translators must play God

The best part of the book turned out to be the translator’s note.

📖 That’s what happened to me when I read “The Cat Who Save Books” by Sosuke Natsukawa translated by Louise Heal Kawai into English. Every now and then, I read English or German translations of Japanese literature when I come across them in local bookshops. The said book came to hand in a second-hand bookshop in Den Haag.

Honestly speaking, I felt that I am not exactly the right target group for this book. A fantasy light novel pepped up with puppy love did not really catch my imagination until I read the afterword by the translator.

😁 I could not suppress a grin when reading the following lines.

(Quote) “Impossible to retain, however, is the absence of pronouns in the Japanese language. …. Japanese words for “he” or “she” exist, but are rarely used”. (End of Quote)

⚥ You cannot possibly write “he or she” in a story and have the translator play God to decide the gender of the protagonists. Here, one of the central characters is a cat.

(Quote) “…, this character’s [i.e. the cat’s] gender is indeterminate. In truth, the clues are there in the language. There tend to be different masculine and feminine styles of speech in Japanese, and in the original language, the cat sounds more like a man than a woman. …“ (End of Quote)

Indeed, I got the impression of a male cat speaking in dialogues with Rintaro, the main protagonist. The cat spoke always so imposingly as if dressing down a forlorn boy. The spirit of “masculine speech” in Japanese is well caught in English. Well done, Louise!

But if the work were written in German, the gender issue would be practically non-existent.  Just remember “Der gestiefelte Kater (=male cat)”.  😉

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