James Westerhoven Wins an Important Translation Award

I have not posted in months - but not for lack of material! Sometimes, things just don't happen for no good reason. The coronavirus didn't help, either. But there is one post I have been meaning to write for a few months because it concerns a fellow Murakami translator who has contributed his thoughts to this blog in the past.

James (Jacques) Westerhoven, the leading Dutch translator of Murakami (and many other writers), won the 2020 Martinus Nijhoff Translation Award, the most prestigious translation award in the Netherlands and Belgium. The award ceremony was to take place in March, but was moved to September, due to Covid 19.

The Wikipedia page for the award says that James won the prize for his translations from Japanese, including those of Haruki Murakami and Jumpei Gomikawa. The prize was established in 1953 in memory of the poet and translator, Martinus Nijhoff, and has been awarded since 1955. It seems that the last time the prize was given for translations from Japanese was 1985. 

The jury had this to say about James (I am relying on Google Translate here): "'Translating exactly what the text says' is certainly not Westerhoven's motto, even though he does translate what it says, but he does it in the appropriate key and with the necessary modulation. With his translations, his afterwords and articles, Jacques Westerhoven has done an invaluable service both to Japanese literary culture and to the Dutch readership."

Below are some (not all) of James's translations of Murakami Haruki.

As I was looking on the internet for James's translations, I came across this cover (right). It is Een stoomfluit midden in den nacht (Steam Whistle in the Middle of the Night), which is the title of one of the short shorts from Murakami's 1995 collection Yoru no kumozaru (Spider Monkey of the Night). The book includes that and two more stories English language readers won't find anywhere: "Kanō Kureta" (Creta Kanō, 1990 - the same name as the character from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) and "Futago to shizunda tairiku" (Twins and the Sunken Continent, 1985 - the same twins as the ones that appear in Pinball, 1973). What a treat for Dutch readers! Although perhaps not all readers? I have found a blog online where the author says that the book "was a New Year's gift of a group of Dutch publishers. Not for sale." Perhaps James can shed some light on this?

Besides Murakami, James has translated a variety of writers including Junichiro Tanizaki, Kenzaburo Oe, Yukio Mishima, Jumpei Gomikawa, and Yasushi Inoue. He has also translated Osamu Dazai and Jiro Nitta into English. 

Here are some covers of James's non-Murakami translations.

    

                

Once again, Congratulations, James!