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Maybe someday
32
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
20/100Critics
44/100Scholars
Author:
David Karashima
Publisher:
Soft Skull
Date:
September 1, 2020
How did a loner who seemed destined for a niche domestic Japanese audience become one of the most famous writers alive? A literary celebrity-in-the-making tale, its cast includes an expat trained in art history who never intended to become a translator; a Chinese American ex-academic who never planned to work as an editor; and other publishing professionals in New York, London, and Tokyo who together introduced a pop-inflected, unexpected Japanese voice to the wider reading world.
What The Reviewers Say
... a slim but fascinating new treatise by David Karashima on the business of bringing the best-selling novelist to a global audience.
Karashima communicated extensively with the principal actors in trying to trace the path of the various translations and publications, and it makes for a fascinating glimpse of how an author becomes established in a foreign language and market, including the compromises and choices made along the way. Among the amusing aspects of this strong reliance on first-hand accounts—Karashima quoting verbatim extensively—is that Karashima has no qualms presenting differing accounts, as well as showing his sources to often be uncertain in their recollection.
Karashima, a Japanese novelist, makes his English-language debut with this illuminating look at the 'Murakami phenomenon'.
A lively account of the many people involved in bringing Haruki Murakami’s writings to English-speaking readers.
