This volume is a faithful account of an important and stimulating series of colloquia held at the International House of Japan in May of 1998. The speakers were four very distinguished translators of Japanese literature, all academics from U.S. institutions: Professors Edwin McClellan of Yale; Edward Seidensticker, emeritus at Columbia; Howard Hibbett, emeritus at Harvard; and John Nathan, of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Each presented a lecture on one or more Japanese authors whom he had translated and then answered questions from the audience. There was a final, round-table discussion on a fifth evening in which the lecturers addressed each other, offering opportunities for comment, criticism and not a few witty ripostes; again, the audience was invited to participate with questions.
Donald Richie served as moderator on all of the evenings, sometimes suggesting lines of inquiry to the speakers and guiding the questions from the audience with a courteous but firm hand.