Visualizing Translation: Continued

In an earlier post I wrote about translating a chapter from Killing Commendatore, in which Boku finds an old painting in the attic. I wrote about how after reaching on the internet for different ways  people imagined the painting helped mi visualize it and write (or: translate) about it.

I went through a similar process when translating Chapter 16. In that chapter Boku, a professional portrait painter, is working on a portrait of Menshiki (whom I also tried to imagine with internet's help). The process starts from sketching Menshiki, who poses for his portrait. But later the painter continues painting from memory and allowing his subconscious to take over and for the inspiration for colors and textures to emerge from within. He describes adding thick black lines to create a "skeleton" of the portrait, and later adds white, green and orange. Gradually Menshiki's face becomes invisible but Menshiki is still present in the painting. This is perhaps a bit of a spoiler, but let me just say that Menshiki really likes the resulting portrait.

I tried to imagine what the portrait might have looked like and then remembered that the webpage where I have found different versions of Killing Commendatore painting also provided somebody's visualization of different stages of the portrait's creation. Here are the images, which you can find at:
 painginghttps://komyushou.com/mennshiki-wataru


                                

                               

                                

Taiwanese Translation of Killing Commendatore Came out on December 12

The Chinese translation of Haruki Murakami's newest book, Killing Commendatore, appeared in bookstores in Taipei on December 12, although the official publication date was December 8.  (This is the version in traditional characters; a simplified-character mainland Chinese translation by Lin Shaohua is supposedly in the works.)  The publisher is China Times, and the translator is the tireless Lai Ming Chu. Tireless, because she is, I believe, the author of the first Murakami translation into any foreign language, and because she has translated almost all of his works, including novels, shorts stories, essays, travelogues, etc.

The blue and white books on the left are the paperback versions, and the colorful ones on the right are  from the hardcover boxed set.

And here is Lai Ming Chu with her "Murakami shelf" in a bookstore in Taipei.

Dutch Translation of Volume I of Killing Commendatore Came out on December 1st!

As announced on September on this blog, the first European translation of Killing Commendatore was published by Atlas Contact on December 1st. The co-translators from Dutch are Elbrich Fennema and Luk van Haute. 

On her public Facebook page, What I think about when I translate Murakami, Fennema wrote:

"It is always a moment of magic to feel an actual, factual book in your hands, even though as a translator I know the content inside out. For months Luk and I ( co-translaters) could keep our options open, simmer over choices, make adjustments. But the text is now fixated in the form of a book. And something strange happens: in print it all of a sudden looks like it was always there. As if Killing Commendatore is an obvious concept.
Of course it wasn't always like that...
As translators we struggled with the right word in Dutch for 'Killing'. Was it murder? Manslaugher? Self defense? At times translating felt a lot like detective work: looking for clues, magnifying glass in hand. After 1000 pages, we are confident to conclude that it is definitely a case of murder..."

Volume II is to appear on January 12, Murakami's birthday. 

And now we are waiting for the German translation by Ursula Gräfe, which -- at least as far as I know -- will be next.