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ALISON WATTS
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Literary translation is a balancing act. I love juggling words to share great stories written in Japanese with English readers.
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I had a long career as a commercial translator until one book changed my life: a travel memoir about art student Aya Goda's journey through China and Tibet in 1989 during the turmoil of Tiananmen. Riveted by this tale, I burned to share it with the English-speaking world. Long story short, my translation was eventually published as TAO: On the Road and on the Run in Outlaw China (Portobello) and I became hooked on literary translation. Since then I have translated the international bestseller Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, Spark by Naoki Matayoshi (the Japanese publishing phenomenon that was made into a Netflix series), The Aosawa Murders (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2020) and Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda, and The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase. In 2021 I won the Kyoko Selden Memorial Prize for Translation for an excerpt from Durian Sukegawa’s travel memoir A Dosimeter on the Narrow Road to Oku. When not translating, I like to walk my dog, do sashiko Japanese embroidery and hike in the mountains of Japan. |
