南向き翻訳事務所 岩渕デボラ ブログ

I had originally wanted to start a blog as a space to make notes and observations of my life here in Japan as well as my work as a translator. At some point last fall, though, both my life and my work got away from me. By the time March and the end of the fiscal year rolled around, I had translated three books from Japanese to English, supervised and assisted in getting several books translated from English to Japanese (opening up a brand new field of operations!) and been (much too deeply) involved in getting my offspring accepted to graduate school in the US. There is so much to say about that last one, but I won’t get started here. Suffice it to say that I might not have been so encouraging if I’d known how much work it was going to be for me! Rather than hearing about that, enjoy the pictures of college graduation below.

For now, I am back into my former life as a pay-by-the-page translator. Although it won’t be long before I’m back into high anxiety mode about what is NOT happening, I’m glad for a while to be doing work that is received today, finished tomorrow, and nothing but a pleasant memory in about a week.

I have missed reading for pleasure, and a promise to do a book review or two has finally urged me back to the printed page. In the next days and weeks, I’ll be doing a review of Suzanne Kamata’s latest book, and I hope to be introducing readers to the work of Deborah Davidson, a  life-long resident of Japan who has made translating and spreading the books of Ayako Miura her life work.