blog




  • Essay / Analysis of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore Translation

    Table of ContentsIntroductionKafka on the ShoreAnalysisConclusionIntroduction Haruki Murakami is an acclaimed Japanese writer and his books are perhaps the most widely translated from Japanese to English. Appreciated by the whole world, his book releases are met with crowds of people lining up to get their hands on his latest work. Growing up, Murakami became closely identified with works outside of Japan and, rejecting traditional Japanese methods, he began to appreciate jazz and Hollywood, which have greatly contributed to his works today. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay Taking inspiration from the Western world, Murakami ran a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo at the age of 29 . the desire to write, and he then produced his very first novel "Hear the Wind Sing", which won him the New Writers' Prize. In his first novel "Hear the Wind Sing", he wrote the first pages in English and then translated them into Japanese just to hear what they sounded like. He is also a translator and has translated many other English works, including "The Great Gatsby" into Japanese. Although he has a good command of the English language, Murakami writes in Japanese, which is then translated into English by his personal translators. He claimed in an interview that he never reads his works in translation, because reading his work in a different language might be disappointing. “My books exist in their original Japanese version. That's what's most important, because that's how I wrote them. » Kafka On The Shore Kafka On The Shore was published in 2002 in Japan, then translated into English by Phillip Gabriel. It tells the story of two stranded people, Kafka Tamura and Nakata. Kafka, the first to fail, runs away from his house and his father who kills cats to make flutes with their souls, and ends up with Mrs. Saeki, the owner of a library. Nakata's story begins with American X-File recordings about a group of fourth graders who go up into the mountains looking for mushrooms before seeing a UFO and passing out. . They wake up shortly after, except for Nakato, who was in a coma for a few days before waking up, disoriented, but with the ability to talk to cats. The lives of Kafka and Nakato intertwine as Nakato kills Kafka's father, who he thought was Johnnie Walker. This is a surreal coming-of-age novel, featuring the struggles of all the characters as they battle their personal demons. I chose this translated book by Murakami because it is very different from his other works, a new style of writing. Murakami's other previous works were about adults and their stories. But with Kafka On The Shore, he writes in the language of children, Kakfa being a brilliant fifteen-year-old boy and Nakata, a sixty-year-old man who has never developed mental development beyond that of a child. Philip Gabriel also explained that translating this book was a different task as some details required days of experimentation and finding the right voice for the characters in English. The analysis Umibi no Kafuka, which translates to Kafka On The Shore, was translated by Philip Gabriel, and the English version definitely feels the presence of the new translator. The problem with the translation I find is that the author's voice changes quite often. In other works of Murakami, Jay Rubin was a major translator and one could definitely tell the difference in the translation methods used by different English writers. In the text..