南向き翻訳事務所 岩渕デボラ ブログ

This Miyuki Miyabe favorite, translated by Deborah Iwabuchi, will be out in paperback in a couple of weeks.

I love the protagonist in Devil’s Whisper. Mamoru Kusaka is a teenage boy with a sad past, a future that grows bleaker by the moment, but several skills that give him some options.

One aspect of Miyabe’s writing that I regret losing in translation is the meaning in her character’s names.  “Mamoru,” a common boy’s name, is also the verb for “protect,” and that indeed is Mamoru’s role in this suspense novel. Another character is named “Shinjiro,” a play on the imperative form of “believe.” Both names are revealing. Mamoru spends his time trying to take care of business, while Shinjiro is more interested in what he can make others do.

And that’s as far as I can go without giving it all away!

(Enjoy the bright colors on the cover of this new edition as well as the affordable price!)

遠田和子さんの新作タイトルが上記のように決まりました。

よしざわ　ようこさんのイラストもここで「予告編」をお楽しみ下さい！

最初のイラストは小さいけれども、本で活躍するキャラクターを紹介します。左から、会社でクライエントとの英語やりとりを担当するハルミさん、工学者で英語論文を励むケンジさん、大学生のユリさん、とユリさんを教えているボッブ先生です。

Bill Cosby has finally decided to accept the Mark Twain Prize for Humor.

My brother and sister and I owe our sense of humor in large part to Bill Cosby. I remember lying on the floor at somebody’s house, listening to Bill Cosby’s records. There must have been several families there, filling up every available spot, and we couldn’t stop laughing. We had never heard anything so funny in our lives–and even the adults were wiping their eyes! It wasn’t long before we had our own collection of Bill Cosby records, which we virtually memorized.

We recited Cosby’s monologue on getting his tonsils out on our way to the hospital each time one of us had our tonsils out: “And you’re going to get ALL THE ICE CREAM YOU CAN EAT!” we screamed in unison. My mom later said she was afraid it was going to make us scared (”Don’t tell me that you KILLED JOHNSON!”)  but it left nothing to our imagination, and we knew that, somewhere in it all, there WOULD BE ICE CREAM!

Bill Cosby taught us how to be funny. How to be funny in a way that was not offensive, not crass, and not bullying. He was someone the whole family could enjoy and it made for some fun times together. Bill Cosby has always been an advocate for education, and I’d just like to say that his work and his presence was a secure island of values and useful instruction for me as I grew up in the US in the 1960s and 70s.

親友の遠田和子による新作英文ライティングの本が発売間際！『英語なるほどライティング』著者の次の本はグーグル検索を使った英文ライティングテクニックのご披露です。

遠田さんのキャリアの始めの頃（私もそうですが）ファックスとワープロは技術の端でした。単語調べのためにたくさんの辞書を買い集めて、ひざの上に何冊も載せて仕事をこなせたわけです。しかし、現代ではインターネットを使って、ひざを痛むことなくになんでも調べることができます。しかし、それにもやり方があります。

個人的に、私はこんなに楽にできる方法を教えてもいいのかなと思うことがありますが、遠田さんはもっと心の広い人なので、読者の皆さんは幸せです。

タイトルが決まり次第またお知らせします。

今回のイラストは遠田さんと私のもう一人の友達、版画家のよしざわようこさんが担当です。

現実的ですくに役立つ本プラス夢にあふれたイラストです。ご期待下さい！

伊勢神宮を題にした写真集の解説英訳を頼まれたのがきっかけで、伊勢神宮に初めて行きました。写真家の宮沢さんと講談社の編集者の中島さんの付き添いという名目で神嘗祭という滅多に見られない夜の儀式を見ることができました。真っ暗の夜でぎしぎしと砂利の道を歩きました。関係者以外が見られないところの多いお祭りですが、見られるところ、聞こえるところがとても神秘的で感動的した。次の日、昼間の間、少し自分の写真が撮れました。

写真集は宮沢正明さんという すばらしい写真家の作品。それに見合う英訳になりますように！

I couldn’t resist. Within an hour of Amazon’s announcement that Kindle would now be available in Japan, I had already placed my order. It arrived yesterday, and within about an hour of that I had already downloaded two books (it came all set up for me and my current Amazon account: “Welcome, Deborah”). For the first time in my life, I was afraid of what I might do with a credit card.

The disadvantage of Kindle, of course, is that not all books are available in the format, and you can’t pass your favorite books around your best friends, but there are plenty of advantages to the Kindle reading experience.

As someone whose previously excellent  eyesight has been ravaged  by time and occupation, I find Kindle very easy to read. The background is not a gleaming white and the print doesn’t dance around the page on me. There is a little switch that allows you to make print smaller or larger, and the machine opens up to the last page you were on when you set it down. You can add bookmarks and make searches. The device is large enough for comfortable reading (I like to read lying down, and this avoids having to adjust my position to the side of the page) and small enough to drop in your purse to carry around with you.

At the risk of angering purists, the Kindle is a godsend for expatriate native English speakers. No long waits, no shipping charges, no ridiculous mark-ups. As a homeowner with limited and completely occupied shelf space–well, it goes without saying.  In the long run, this sort of reading device should benefit writers as well as readers. I shall soon be investigating the former!

ブログを始めるいくつ理由がありました。その１つは広報活動でした。

皮肉なことに、忙しいほどブログが書けないけれど、ブログを覗かれるといかにも何も起こっていないように見えるでしょう。

８月の里帰り の間は静かでしたが、９月以降は次々から新しいプロジェクトが始まり、大学の後期にも突入しました。

これから出版される英訳、和訳、脇役の作品が色々ありますので、これからは少しずつ紹介したいと思います。

よろしくお願いします。（もちろん、いつもの商業用翻訳も続けています！）