Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel email discussion (2001)

Here is some email intercourse between Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, two out of the three published translators of Murakami's past work.

The upcoming (September 2011) release of the new Murakami books will be translated by Jay Rubin (Books 1 & 2) and Philip Gabriel (Book 3). The indications are that all three books will be released at the same time. This seems strange, and would explain to some extent why the release is so late after the publishing of the original works. However, the Chinese and Dutch translations are already out there, so it's probably not that. No, the real reason is that Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel have other, overriding commitments, like making a living.

Jay Rubin very funnily talks smack about freelance translators in one of his emails. Could it be he thinks only Western University professors of Japanese literature are qualified to translate Japanese literature?

<injoke>
I think a little more editing could have helped there, Jay.
</injoke>

1Q84 Sep 2011 release = translation fail!

Murakami Haruki Knopf Jay Rubin English Translation 1Q84 (search engine word pattern tactics)

So the new Murakami book is only getting an English language release in September 2011. The translator Jay Rubin must be busy 'til then drinking toddies in his pipe and slippers.

Can I sneak in with a translation here? That would be fun. And terrible work.

What does 1Q84 even mean anyway? Why is the Q in there instead of 9? Someone will have to translate it to find out.