If you pick up any translated novel off a bookshelf in Japan, you will find the original author and the translator’s names on the front cover. In an English-speaking country, however, you’ll probably have to flick through a few pages to find out who translated the book you just picked up. It’s a strange phenomenon that Japanese publishers always credit the translator on the front cover, whereas many Western publishers of translated novels don’t.
Because of this, you might not realize the book you’re reading was originally written in another language, especially if the translator has done an amazing job with the writing. “The Memory Police” by Yoko Ogawa is described by Penguin Random House as “powerful and provocative,” but it’s Stephen Snyder’s words that evoke these emotions in the English reader.
Surely it’s the author’s words you’re reading even in a translated book? Yes and no. The original author may write the story, but it’s the translator’s prose you’re engaging with. “It takes skill and talent to interpret the words of the original author and create an English equivalent,” says literary translator Louise Heal Kawai.