Japanese Translation Wins Prize

Posted on: September 09, 2008

September, 2008 — Translator Dennis Washburn has been awarded the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for his translation of Tsutomu Mizukami's The Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen, published in March 2008 by Dalkey Archive Press. The Prize, awarded once a year for the best translation of a modern or classical Japanese work, is administered by the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University.

The Temple of the Wild Geese is the semi-autobiographical story of a young monk who is abandoned by his beggar mother and then apprenticed to a corrupt Buddhist temple. It won the Naoki Prize upon its original publication in 1961. In 1963, Tsutomu Mizukami published Bamboo Dolls of Echizen, in which the son of a bamboo craftsman marries his dead father’s prostitute, seeking only motherly affection and support to become a master bamboo artisan himself. Both novellas are considered to be among the finest of Mizukami’s many award-winning works.

Tsutomu Mizukami (1919-2004) was born in the Fukui Prefecture of Japan. During his lifetime, he was a bestselling author of novels, detective stories, biographies, and plays. Dennis Washburn is a professor of Japanese and comparative literature at Dartmouth, and is currently visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen is the fourth of five title published thus far in Dalkey Archive's Japanese Literature Series—launched in 2005 with support from the Japanese Literature Publishing Project (JLPP)—which brings important works of contemporary Japanese literature to American readers. Other titles in the series include Uchida Hyakken’s Realm of the Dead, Nobuo Kojima’s Embracing Family, Aiko Kitahara’s The Budding Tree, and Shotaro Yasuoka’s The Glass Slipper and Other Stories.

For more information about the Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen, visit our catalog page.

For a review in the Los Angeles Times, visit here.

For Dalkey Archive’s Japanese Literature Series, browse our literature series.


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Japanese Translation Wins Prize Posted on: September 09, 2008 September, 2008 — Translator Dennis Washburn has been awarded the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for his translation of Tsutomu Mizukami's The Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen, published in March 2008 by Dalkey Archive Press. The Prize, awarded once a year for the best translation of a modern or classical Japanese work, is administered by the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University. The Temple of the Wild Geese is the semi-autobiographical story of a young monk who is abandoned by his beggar mother and then apprenticed to a corrupt Buddhist temple. It won the Naoki Prize upon its original publication in 1961. In 1963, Tsutomu Mizukami published Bamboo Dolls of Echizen, in which the son of a bamboo craftsman marries his dead father’s prostitute, seeking only motherly affection and support to become a master bamboo artisan himself. Both novellas are considered to be among the finest of Mizukami’s many award-winning works. Tsutomu Mizukami (1919-2004) was born in the Fukui Prefecture of Japan. During his lifetime, he was a bestselling author of novels, detective stories, biographies, and plays. Dennis Washburn is a professor of Japanese and comparative literature at Dartmouth, and is currently visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen is the fourth of five title published thus far in Dalkey Archive's Japanese Literature Series—launched in 2005 with support from the Japanese Literature Publishing Project (JLPP)—which brings important works of contemporary Japanese literature to American readers. Other titles in the series include Uchida Hyakken’s Realm of the Dead, Nobuo Kojima’s Embracing Family, Aiko Kitahara’s The Budding Tree, and Shotaro Yasuoka’s The Glass Slipper and Other Stories. For more information about the Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen, visit our catalog page. For a review in the Los Angeles Times, visit here. For Dalkey Archive’s Japanese Literature Series, browse our literature series.

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