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?

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I think a little more editing could have helped there, Jay.
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