Last May I blogged about Haruki Murakami‘s translations of major works by American authors, including The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and more. At the time I idly speculated about the depth of Murakami’s translation efforts. Today I received a little more clarity. The list below comes courtesy of Naoko Mayuzumi (aka Miss Brolly), based on the Japanese Wikipedia entry for Murakami and her own research.
I’m deeply grateful for the time she took to assemble this; it’s a fascinating list. I’m not surprised that there’s so much Raymond Carver in here, nor is it shocking to see the early-’80s Sudden Fiction collection—both contain plenty of exemplars of the minimalist style that Murakami made his own. But it’s interesting to see a little John Irving thrown in there, and a whole lot of Chris Van Allsburg and Ursula K. Le Guin. I’ve tweaked some of the formatting here, but everything else, including links, comes direct from Mayuzumi.
List of American Books and Essays Translated (from English to Japanese) by Haruki Murakami
Note: The month and year in parentheses indicates the time when the Japanese translation was published in Japan.
By author:
C. D. Bryan:
The Great Dethriffe (published by Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd. in November 1987)
Truman Capote:
I Remember Grandpa (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in March 1988)
One Christmas (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in December 1989)
A Christmas Memory (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in November 1990)
Children on Their Birthdays (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in June 2002)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (published by Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd. in February 2008)
Raymond Carver:
Where I’m Calling From (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in July 1983; includes “Why Don’t You Dance?,” “Tell the Women We’re Going,” “Cathedral,” “Sacks,” “Are You a Doctor?,” “Where I’m Calling From,” “So Much Water So Close to Home,” and “Everything Stuck to Him”)
At Night the Salmon Move (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in July 1985; includes “Feathers,” “The Pheasant,” “Vitamins,” “Put Yourself in My Shoes,” “Jerry and Molly and Sam,” “My Father’s Life,” “At Night the Salmon Move,” “For Semra, with Martial Vigor,” and “You Don’t Know What Love Is”)
A Small, Good Thing (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in April 1989; includes “They Are Not Your Husband,” “Neighbors,” “Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes,” “I Could See the Smallest Things,” “Popular Mechanics,” “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” “A Small, Good Thing,” “The Bridle,” “Boxes,” “Whoever Was Using This Bed,” “Menudo,” and “Elephant”)
Carver Country: The World of Raymond Carver (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in October 1994)
Carver’s Dozen (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in December 1994; collected and translated by Haruki Murakami; includes 10 stories [“Fat,” “Nobody Said Anything,” “Are You a Doctor?,” “Collectors,” “So Much Water So Close to Home,” “Why Don’t You Dance?,” “Cathedral”, “Where I’m Calling From”, “A Small, Good Thing,” and “Errand”], 1 essay [“My Father’s Life”], and 2 poems [“Lemonade” and “Late Fragment”])
The Complete Works of Raymond Carver (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc./Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc.)
* Volume 1: “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?” (February 1991)
* Volume 2: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” (August 1990)
* Volume 3: “Cathedral” (May 1990)
* Volume 4: “Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories” (September 1992)
* Volume 5: “Where Water Comes Together With Other Water / Ultramarine” (September 1997)
* Volume 6: “Elephant / A New Path to the Waterfall” (March 1994)
* Volume 7: “No Heroics, Please” (July 2002)
* Volume 8: “Call if You Need Me” (July 2004)
Raymond Chandler:
The Long Goodbye (published by Hayakawa Publishing Corporation in March 2007)
Bill Crow:
From Birdland to Broadway (published by Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd. in January 1996)
Jazz Anecdotes (published by Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd. in July 2000)
Terry Farish:
The Cat Who Liked Potato Soup (published by Kodansha Ltd. in November 2005)
F. Scott Fitzgerald:
My Lost City: Personal Essays (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in May 1981)
The Scott Fitzgerald Book (published by TBS-Britannica Co., Ltd. in March 1988; a book by Haruki Murakami about Scott Fitzgerald, but it includes his translations of Fitzgerald’s two essays, “On Your Own” and “The Rich Boy”)
Babylon Revisited (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in April 1996)
The Great Gatsby (published by Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc. in November 2006)
Jim Fusilli:
The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (published by Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd. in February 2008)
Mikal Gilmore:
Shot in the Heart (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in October 1996)
Mark Helprin:
Swan Lake (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in December 1991)
John Irving:
Setting Free the Bears (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in May 1986)
Ursula K. Le Guin:
Catwings (published by Kodansha Ltd. in March 1993)
Catwings Return (published by Kodansha Ltd. in December 1993)
Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings (published by Kodansha Ltd. in June 1997)
Jane on her Own (published by Kodansha Ltd. in September 2001)
Tim O’Brien:
The Nuclear Age (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in October 1989)
The Things They Carried (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in October 1990)
July, July (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in March 2004)
Grace Paley:
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in May 1999)
The Little Disturbances of Man (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in June 2005)
J. D. Salinger:
The Catcher in the Rye (published by Hakusuisha Publishing Co., Ltd. in April 2003)
Mark Strand:
Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories (published by Chuokoron-sha, Inc. in October 1998)
Paul Theroux:
World’s End and Other Stories (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in July 1987)
Chris Van Allsburg:
The Wreck of the Zephyr (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in October 1985)
The Polar Express (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in December 1987)
The Stranger (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in August 1989)
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in November 1990)
The Widow’s Broom (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in June 1993)
The Sweetest Fig (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in September 1994)
Ben’s Dream (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in April 1996)
The Wretched Stone (published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in November 2003)
Two Bad Ants (published by Asunaro Shobo in September 2004)
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (published by Asunaro Shobo in September 2005)
Collections:
Watashitachi No Rinjin, Raymond Carver (Published by Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc. in March 2009; the title translates to “Our Neighbor, Raymond Carver.” Murakami collected these essays about Carver by nine writers/editors who personally knew him from Remembering Ray: A Composite Biography of Raymond Carver [except “Ridin’ With Ray and the Old Game” by Jon A. Jackson and “Raymond Carver” by Michiko Miyamoto] and translated them [except Miyamoto’s essay which was written in Japanese originally]):
* “Raymond Carver: A Still, Small Voice” by Jay McInerney
* “Raymond Carver Had His Cake and Ate It Too” by Tobias Wolff
* “All-American Nightmares” by Marcus Morton
* “The Days with Ray” by James D. Houston
* “Ridin’ With Ray” by Jon A. Jackson
* “What We Talk About When We Talk About Carver” by David Carpenter
* “Raymond Carver” by Michiko Miyamoto
* “Hope This Finds You Well and All” by Gary Fisketjon
* “Bulletproof” by William Kittredge
And Other Stories―Totteoki No America Shosetsu 12 Hen (published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in September 1988; the title translates to “And Other Stories―12 Treasured American Short Stories.” Five Japanese translators brought their favorite American stories and translated them for this collection.) Murakami translated the following stories:
* “The Moccasin Telegraph” by W. P. Kinsella
* “Thirty-Four Seasons of Winter” by William Kittredge
* “What’s Your Story” by Ronald Sukenick
* “Samuel” by Grace Paley
* “Living” by Grace Paley
Getsuyobi Wa Saiakuda-to Minna Wa Iu Keredo (Published by Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc. in May 2000; the title translates to “They Call It Stormy Monday.” American short stories and essays collected and translated by Murakami):
* “The Carver Chronicles” by D. T. Max
* “Good Raymond” by Richard Ford
* “The Vietnam In Me” by Tim O’Brien
* “Nogales” by Tim O’Brien
* “Loon Point” by Tim O’Brien
* “John Irving’s (Revised) World” by John Paul Newport
* “I Am A…Genius!” by Thom Jones
* “Secret Agent” by Denis Johnson
Birthday Stories: Selected and Introduced by Haruki Murakami (I think this American edition just contains the original stories in English. The Japanese edition of this book, published by Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc. in December 2002, contains translations of these American stories by Murakami.)
Murakami Haruki HybLit (published by ALC Inc. in November 2008; a bilingual book containing three stories, selected by Murakami, in English and Japanese: “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien [Japanese translation by Murakami], “A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver [Japanese translation by Murakami], and “Lederhosen” by Haruki Murakami [English translation by Alfred Birnbaum]; “HybLit” in the title is the compound of “hybrid” and “literature”)
Sudden Fiction is translated into Japanese by two translators (Haruki Murakami and Takayoshi Ogawa) and published by Bungeishunju Ltd. in January 1994. The following stories are translated by Murakami:
* “A Sudden Story” by Robert Coover
* “Mother” by Grace Paley
* “The King of Jazz” by Donald Barthelme
* “Reunion” by John Cheever
* “Twirler” by Jane Martin
* “Five Ives” by Roy Blount Jr.
* “Song on Royal Street” by Richard Blessing
* “The Merry Chase” by Gordon Lish
* “Popular Mechanics” Raymond Carver
* “Turning” by Lynda Sexson
* “Say Yes” by Tobias Wolff
* “The Hit Man” by T. Coraghessan Boyle
* “A Questionnaire for Rudolph Gordon” by Jack Matthews
* “I See You Never” by Ray Bradbury
* “The Bank Robbery” by Steven Schutzman
* “Tent Worms” by Tennessee Williams
* “Sitting” by H. E. Francis
* “Dog Life” by Mark Strand
* “The Hatchet Man in the Lighthouse” by William Peden
* “Happy” by Joyce Carol Oates
* “The Anatomy of Desire” by John L’Heureux
* “Class Notes” by Lucas Cooper
* “The Neighbor” by Russell Banks
* “Reading the Paper” by Ron Carlson
* “Speed of Light” by Pat Rushin
* “Gerald’s Song” by Philip F. O’Connor
* “Blind Girls” by Jayne Anne Philips
* “The Signing” by Stephen Dixon
* “The Quail” by Rolf Yngve
* “The Artichoke” by Marilyn Krysl
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