Speaker

Alison Watts

Alison Watts is an Australian-born longtime resident of Ibaraki prefecture. Turning from commercial to literary translation in 2016 she has translated the novels Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, Spark by Naoki Matayoshi, The Aosawa Murders and Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda, and The Boy and The Dog by Seishu Hase. In 2021 she was awarded the Kyoko Selden Memorial Prize for Translation. She also translates sashiko books.

Sessions

The Story of Shonen to Inu’s Journey into English

When Seishu Hase won a Naoki Prize in July 2020 for Shonen to Inu, my interest was immediately piqued. Once I had read it I knew I wanted the job of translating it into English. That ambition came to fruition this year when The Boy And The Dog was released from Simon & Schuster on October 27 and Viking Press on November 15. In this session I will talk about how I came to translate the book,...

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