Photo/Illutration Hiromi Kawakami, right, and Robert Campbell talk during an event at the Waseda International House of Literature in Tokyo on Oct. 23. (Provided by Waseda University)

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series on “Authors Alive!” book-reading and other events to mark the opening of the Waseda International House of Literature, known as the Haruki Murakami Library.

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As if in a nod to the name of the Waseda International House of Literature, author Hiromi Kawakami read aloud from three of her works in Japanese, followed by a recital of an English translation of the same piece.

Kawakami and Japanese literature researcher Robert Campbell, who provided the translation, took the podium at the bilingual reading session on Oct. 23 at the facility, more commonly known as the Haruki Murakami Library.

The event was the third in a series of public reading sessions titled “Authors Alive!” to mark the Oct. 1 opening of the library, which stands on the main campus of Waseda University in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

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The logo of the “Authors Alive!” events (Provided by Waseda University)

The pair read “The Magic Spell” and “Lord of the Flies,” two works included in “People from My Neighborhood,” a collection of Kawakami’s super-short stories printed in the Monkey literary magazine, as well as a passage from “Strange Weather in Tokyo.”

“Strange Weather in Tokyo,” which was previously published as “The Briefcase,” is known as one of Kawakami’s most important works in the English-speaking world.

Kawakami listened intently as Campbell read the English versions of her works.

“I realize the translators have elaborately read every single line of my works, including things that I wrote quite casually,” she said. “I think they know my novels better than I do.”

Campbell, a specially appointed professor of Japanese literature with Waseda University, said, “(The art of translation) is like repainting colors scrupulously, piece by piece.”

A participant asked Kawakami what she thinks about her novels being adapted into a movie or other video works.

“If an artist makes something different from my original novel, I leave everything up to them and let them do whatever they like to do,” Kawakami said.

Campbell said, “That has something in common with the relationship between a novel and its translation.”

Among Kawakami’s novels, “The Ten Loves of Mr. Nishino” was adapted into a film and “Strange Weather in Tokyo” was made into a TV drama.

“Both translation and video adaptation amount to acts of creation in their own right,” Kawakami said. “If my work of fiction serves as a vehicle, I don’t mind even if its original shape is lost, so long as it turns into something.”

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Hiromi Kawakami (Provided by Waseda University)

After the reading session, Campbell told reporters, “I had this feeling as if emotions and scenes that are intrinsic to the works were forming stereoscopic images because I was reciting (the English text) while the reverberations of Kawakami’s Japanese text were still lingering there.”

Kawakami said, “It feels so embarrassing to read my own works in public, but I enjoyed doing so today, perhaps because we did that in both Japanese and English. I had the sense that something different was being created.”

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