The translator of our October Book of the Month talks about the impact of being shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022, the Japanese fiction boom – and why this 20th-century novel speaks to 21st-century readers
Stephen Snyder
Stephen Snyder is a translator and professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA
He has translated works by Yoko Ogawa, Kenzaburo Oe, Ryu Murakami, and Miri Yu, among others. His translation of Natsuo Kirino’s Out was a finalist for the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 2004, and his translation of Yoko Ogawa’s Hotel Iris was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011.
All nominated books
A beautiful, haunting and provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss from Yoko Ogawa, one of Japan’s greatest writers
By Yoko Ogawa
Translated by Stephen Snyder
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