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Entrevista con el profesor Terao Ryukichi, biógrafo del Premio Nobel de Literatura colombiano y traductor al japonés de Borges y Cortázar, entre otros.
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00:10Welcome to Interviews with the Viewer.
00:12My guest today is Professor Terao Ryukichi.
00:16Welcome to the Spectator.
00:17Thank you so much for the invitation.
00:19He is a Japanese Hispanist, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo,
00:24PhD in Latin American Studies from the University of Tokyo,
00:27researcher of Latin American literature,
00:30and translator into Japanese of the great classics of Latin American literature.
00:35I found out that I had invited him to Bogotá,
00:37the Japan Center of the University of the Andes,
00:40and I asked him to do me the favor of coming to El Espectador.
00:42I'm very interested in telling Colombians.
00:46Why did he become so interested in Colombian literature?
00:50Well, since my high school years I've had a great interest in literature,
00:56But during those years I only read Japanese literature, a little English and American literature,
01:03But by chance I started studying Spanish when I entered the University of Tokyo.
01:09It was by chance, but I started studying Spanish, I liked it,
01:14And that was the link that put me in contact with Latin American literature.
01:20I remember it very well, the first book of Latin American literature that I read
01:24It was The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa.
01:27That world fascinated me; I continued reading Vargas Llosa.
01:34and then I continued with One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez,
01:38And that novel really fascinated me.
01:40Why? Why in particular?
01:42No, it's something I didn't know, it's something completely new.
01:45So, it was a tremendous shock because I never imagined that in a novel
01:52could do something so extraordinary.
01:58I thought it was all extraordinary, I was fascinated.
02:01And then you got so close to Colombia that you ended up studying at the Cari Cuervo Institute.
02:07and lived here for three years.
02:09When was it?
02:10And what was that experience like?
02:12I joined in 2000, I arrived in '99.
02:16But I entered the seminary at the Cari Cuervo Institute in the year 2000,
02:21in January 2000.
02:23There I took many courses in linguistics and literature,
02:28of Colombian poetry.
02:31That's how I got closer to Colombian literature.
02:35And what impression did that perception of having read Colombian literature leave on you?
02:43And live in Colombia, specifically in Bogotá?
02:45It was such an extraordinary experience for me, because living in the world,
02:51Actually, García Márquez's world is a little different,
02:55Well, it's the Caribbean world, but it also has a lot in common with the world of Bogotá.
03:00García Márquez lived here for several years, he worked here for several years.
03:05So living where García Márquez lived was a tremendous experience for me.
03:11And then, from then on, yes, I was able to live.
03:16For me, it's very important to experience the work.
03:19So the experience of living helped me a lot to get closer to Colombian literature.
03:28Actually, Colombian poetry was very foreign to me.
03:34It was not easily accessible.
03:36But when I started living here in Bogotá,
03:39Yes, I began to really appreciate Colombian poetry, for example.
03:43Do you remember any authors or...?
03:45What's his name? Aurelio...
03:47Aurelio Arturo.
03:47Aurelio Arturo did impress me a lot, yes, a somewhat local poet, right?
03:52But despite everything, yes.
03:53From southern Colombia.
03:54From southern Colombia.
03:55And León de Greif also gave me a very good impression.
03:59He is a poet I still admire and like, yes, even now.
04:04León de Greif was one of the great poets from Bogotá and he also worked here at El Espectador.
04:11And it coincided with the time; he was a contributor to El Espectador at the time Gabriel García Márquez worked here.
04:18also.
04:19Oh, I didn't know that.
04:20And what does it mean to you to know the newspaper where García Márquez worked?
04:24Oh, yes, yes, yes. I mean, I really appreciate the invitation, yes, I mean, I'm really excited.
04:31Yes, because I did recently write a short biography of Gabriel García Márquez in Japanese, yes.
04:38So I did a lot of research on his life, yes, on the stages that García Márquez went through before becoming a well-known writer, right?
04:46So, of course, I knew very well that yes, El Espectador was a newspaper where García Márquez worked.
04:53And that he continues to appreciate throughout his life, right?
04:57Clear.
04:58So yes, I'm really excited about this experience.
05:01What is the title of that biography?
05:03Look, I did focus on the literary aspect of García Márquez.
05:08So, I titled it with the combination of magical realism and Latin American literature.
05:15Ah.
05:16That's what I put.
05:17And will you translate it into Spanish at some point?
05:19I hope so, I hope so.
05:20No, I would like to add several things if I publish it in Spanish.
05:24Clear.
05:24Yes, because I wrote it primarily for Japanese readers.
05:28Correct.
05:29And you end up being very well-known, especially for translating authors like Julio Cortázar.
05:35What did you translate first by Julio Cortázar and why did you find it important?
05:38Let's see, I first translated Julio Cortázar's The Other Shore, which is a book of short stories that remained unpublished.
05:45It was published posthumously, yes, sometime in the nineties.
05:49That book hadn't been translated into Japanese, I read it, it interested me a lot, yes, and then
05:56There you can see the literature of Julio Cortázar before he was fully known as Julio Cortázar.
06:03So, some are too simple, yes, some end rather abruptly,
06:11You could say that, but it interested me because there you could get to know Julio Cortázar before
06:17if it were Julio Cortázar.
06:19Clear.
06:20And then he moved on to the one who first captivated him, Mario Vargas Llosa.
06:24What works by Mario Vargas Llosa have you translated?
06:26Let's see, let's see, I've translated The Truth of Lies, a collection of literary essays,
06:32The Fish in the Water, which is the...
06:34Autobiographical Book.
06:36And the Election Campaign, the year ninety.
06:38And then I also translated History of a Deicide, which is García Márquez's study,
06:43the best study on Gabriel García Márquez that has been written to date.
06:48Okay, we agree.
06:49And also Carlos Fuentes, what could he translate from Carlos Fuentes?
06:52Yes, I translated The Most Transparent Region, a novel that fascinated me.
06:56I read it when I lived in Mexico City, a fascinating world.
07:01It was very difficult for me to translate, because Fuentes uses many different styles.
07:04of the working class, of the middle class, of the rich.
07:08It was very difficult for me then, but I'm very happy to have translated it into Japanese.
07:14And how long was he in Mexico City and why?
07:17I was there for a year and a bit, in '97-'98.
07:22Yes, at that time I studied at El Colegio de México.
07:25which is a highly prestigious institution, especially in the field of literature.
07:30Excellent.
07:31You also did a study on the publishing houses that promoted all this literature
07:38by the authors of the Latin American boom.
07:40Exactly, exactly.
07:41And why did he conduct that research, and why did he include, for example,
07:45The South American publishing house, which was the first to print One Hundred Years of Solitude?
07:49Exactly, yes.
07:50I couldn't explain why, but well, for the moment I'm tied down
07:54with a research project on the activities of Argentine publishing houses,
07:59especially from the 20th century, the second half of the 20th century.
08:04Then, the activities carried out by publishers such as MC, Sudamericana, and Lozada.
08:13And of course, I was very interested in the process of publishing and promoting One Hundred Years of Solitude.
08:19All of that happened in 1967.
08:22It was a novel that didn't have much hope of being a success, but it was a success.
08:28Thanks to the collaboration of several friends of the editor, that magical editor who is called
08:34Francisco Porrúa, and the magazine Primera Plana also collaborated a lot.
08:40Then, as the front page of the magazine, it can be viewed on the website.
08:46I followed up on the promotion that was carried out in that magazine, Primera Plana.
08:54And how much of this type of Latin American literature is read in Japan today?
09:00Yes, indeed, One Hundred Years of Solitude was published in paperback two years ago.
09:06And it was a tremendous success, because it has already sold 400,000 copies.
09:12An unprecedented success for a work of universal literature.
09:16Who did that Japanese translation?
09:19It was made by Tadashi Tuzumi in 1972.
09:24Tuzumi has modified some things, but basically yes, it is the original version that is still being edited to this day.
09:31And what other Latin American authors are read in Japan today?
09:35Yes, Vargas Llosa is widely read.
09:37Julio Cortázar also has fans.
09:41And curiously, José Donoso, an author somewhat forgotten in Spain, has many fans in Mexico.
09:50Donoso himself seemed surprised when he was told that several of his works had already been translated into Japanese.
09:59And he was surprised.
10:00Even if he used the translation of The Ocean Bird of the Night, he placed it on the girl's bedside table.
10:07adopted.
10:08Because the girl did seem to have insomnia.
10:10Then the girl slept very well with the book at the head of her bed.
10:17That's what Donoso's daughter tells us.
10:21During this visit to Bogotá, she gave a talk that I found very interesting about translation as appropriation, inspired by
10:30Borges's work.
10:31How did you come to the work of Jorge Luis Borges and why is it representative for studying translation?
10:39Borges, yes, he was always a writer I admired.
10:43I read his stories when I was 20 or in my early twenties and I found them very interesting, very sophisticated.
10:50But for me he was a writer like a god, right?
10:54He wasn't an accessible writer back then.
10:59But anyway, when I joined that research project on Argentine publishing houses,
11:07I started to find out interesting things.
11:10Because in the publishing world of Argentina, of Buenos Aires, a series of atrocities were being committed.
11:15Sometimes books were published without paying royalties.
11:20Intellectual property was constantly being violated.
11:25And of course, Borges also collaborated with that.
11:28Then, little by little, I began to sympathize with him.
11:32And lately, yes, they are discovering interesting things about Borges's private life.
11:37A man who was never successful with women, was always worried about money.
11:42because she wasn't from a particularly wealthy family.
11:45So I had to win to continue enjoying life.
11:50That's when I managed to sympathize with him.
11:53And lately I translated a total of 25 stories that will be published in two books.
11:58And when will they be published?
12:01One seems to have already come off the printing press; it will start circulating in early October.
12:07The second one is a compilation of the stories published in the magazine Sur.
12:13That will be published around mid-November.
12:17I've practically finished the translation and the revision.
12:20Excellent.
12:21But can you say that you have already appropriated Borges from your point of view?
12:26What I do in translation, Borges appropriated everything.
12:30He ate everything.
12:32He translated everything and published it practically as his own text.
12:36He changed the original text, the original version, with great freedom.
12:40Sometimes he would remove the phrase, sometimes he would add the phrase.
12:43What Borges did was appropriate the text.
12:46I do the complete opposite.
12:48I relinquish ownership.
12:50I read Borges's text, I live it, I try to transform it.
12:55In other words, I try to convey that experience in Japanese.
13:00And to convey my experience to Japanese, what I do is objectify my subjective and personal experience.
13:10So, I'm always thinking about Japanese readers, Borges' readers.
13:17So, I try not to get my hands too involved.
13:21In other words, I do the opposite of Borges.
13:24Fortunately, I am not Borges.
13:27But the method you explained here in Bogotá caught my attention.
13:32That preliminary phase of interpreting and adapting.
13:36How does that happen in your case?
13:38For example, with Borges.
13:40Let's see.
13:42I am not a translation theorist.
13:44I don't know how to talk about translation theory.
13:47There's a very wise saying that goes, "The George Bernard Show," which appears in a play called
13:52Man and Superman.
13:55He who knows, does.
13:58And he who does not know, teaches.
14:00So, I know how to translate.
14:02So, I do it intuitively.
14:06But I don't know how to explain it.
14:08But anyway, that's what I already explained to you.
14:10Because I live a novel, I live a work, I live a poem, and I try to convey that experience objectively.
14:20And he has done the work both ways.
14:23He also has a doctorate in Spanish from renowned Japanese writers such as Kensauro or E.
14:28Exactly.
14:29Yes, that experience was very useful for me.
14:31Yes, because that way I was able to improve my Spanish writing.
14:35Actually, yes, I started translating from Japanese to Spanish to improve my Spanish.
14:43Because I wanted to write my doctoral thesis in Spanish.
14:46In fact, I wrote it in Spanish.
14:49On what specific topic?
14:51I worked on the novel, the novelistic aspects of violence in Latin America.
14:55So, I addressed, for example, some novels from Colombian literature about violence.
15:00So, I did an analysis.
15:02Like the orágine or that kind of...?
15:03No, no, later. I did an analysis of when he doesn't want to write, condors don't bury every day, wind
15:11dry, novels like that from the time of violence.
15:15Well, since I wanted to write my thesis in Spanish, I wanted to improve my Spanish and started translating from Japanese to
15:23Spanish.
15:23At that time I was living in Venezuela, in Mérida, Venezuela.
15:26My great friend, Etnodio Quintero, who is a great Japanologist and a great connoisseur of Japanese literature, was very interested in disseminating
15:36Japanese literature.
15:38So, when I started translating some of Tanizaki's stories, Etnodio became very interested and offered to proofread my work.
15:46translation.
15:47That way, I was able to improve my writing.
15:50That's great. But, Kensaburo or E? Is it an ideal entry point to explore and get closer to Japanese literature?
15:58Or what other authors do you recommend?
16:00I don't know, I don't know. Kensaburo or E? I don't know. It's just that, especially since he's fallen in recent years.
16:06in the repetition of the same method.
16:09So, he's already a somewhat faded writer in Japan as well. Therefore, I wouldn't highly recommend him to readers.
16:16Hispanic Americans.
16:17But, for example, I came to Japanese literature through Yukio Mishima. What do you think of Yukio Mishima?
16:22Yes, yes. Yukio Mishima is indeed a very good writer. Especially lately, a work of his was translated that I
16:28I love it, it's called The Beautiful Star, The Lovely Star.
16:32I don't know how to translate "Utsukushi Hoshi" into Spanish.
16:35I would highly recommend that novel. Of course, he's a very important author who remains highly relevant to this day.
16:43Of course. Yes, I don't forget a story.
16:46But if you're asking me to recommend a specific writer, it's Coboave, definitely. I've translated several of Coboave's novels, some
16:54stories too.
16:56For example, which ones?
16:58There's one called The Woman in the Dunes, which is the most well-known. They made a film adaptation that
17:04It turned out very good too.
17:06Coboave himself wrote the screenplay. Then there's another novel called Secret Encounters. I wrote that novel myself.
17:14I translated it, and published it with the Buenos Aires-based publisher, Eterna Cadencia.
17:18There are other very good ones too, The Box Man, which is also my translation, which was published in Spain with the
17:25Ciruela's publishing house. It's a world that's almost magical realism.
17:31Yes, then he creates his own imaginary, fictional world, with a lot of narrative power.
17:43Yukio Mishima was very helpful to me, and I started with a very beautiful story of his called The
17:48Pearl.
17:49Aha, The Pearl.
17:49That's how I got into the novels, etc. Here in Bogotá I saw that they presented one of their translations so that the
17:58Colombian public to approach Japanese literature, titled Seven Japanese Tales by Tanizaki.
18:05Tanizaki, yes, maybe.
18:07It can be a very good introduction, because he is a representative author, he is emblematic, because he is a writer who continued writing for
18:23many years.
18:25So, depending on the stage, the difference is noticeable, and each stage reflects the period of the culture.
18:32Japanese.
18:33So, in that sense, it can serve as a very good guide for beginner readers.
18:38And are there any female writers we can read?
18:42Women, I don't know. A lot has been translated lately, but to be honest, I'm not very knowledgeable about women's literature.
18:52unfortunately.
18:53But are there?
18:54Yes, yes, there are many. Yes, yes, there are many female writers who are making waves.
18:58Therefore, there are female writers whose work has been translated into several Western languages and who have gained readers, that's for sure.
19:05Well, you also gave a talk at the Lernet bookstore, titled Intertwined Voices, Cultural Bridges between Colombia, Latin America and
19:18Japan.
19:19What is the purpose of this bridge of literature? How will it unite us more as nations?
19:28Look, I don't know, I didn't come up with that title.
19:31Well, that was the invitation, wasn't it? But what you're ultimately doing by coming to Colombia is that,
19:36No?
19:37Exactly.
19:37Strengthen cultural ties.
19:39Translators are, in a way, bridges between cultures. Absolutely. And I'm very happy to be one.
19:46bridge between two completely different worlds.
19:49And in fact, yes, I feel very... I feel that I do owe a lot to Colombia, my Spanish, my knowledge of
19:57Literature, yes?
19:58So, I constantly feel indebted to Colombia, right? And you know, it had been 25 years since I'd last been to Bogotá.
20:05To Colombia, yes?
20:07I always wanted to come back, you know? And I never had the chance. And now I do, I'm so happy to be able to pay.
20:14a small part of my debt that I owe to Colombia.
20:17Yes, that satisfies me.
20:19And do you still have friends from that time in Colombia?
20:20Yes, some friends from that time still live in Bogotá. Some have moved away, right?
20:26I have a very good friend in France, another in Quito, Ecuador. Yes, yes, but she still remains in some places.
20:33And do you know several regions of Colombia?
20:35Yes, I have managed to learn some things. Back then it was very difficult to travel, because of the problem of the
20:41guerrilla.
20:42Yes, but I've been to Medellín, Cali, Santa Marta, and Cartagena de Indias. Yes, I've been able to travel, thankfully.
20:52And are there any Colombian literature projects in your upcoming projects?
20:56Well, I'm involved with... Now, we're proposing a new project related to the canonization process of literature
21:08Latin American.
21:09Yes, that's what's happening in Madrid, for example. Look, yes, that series called Commemorative Editions,
21:16Yeah?
21:16Yes. Yes. It has about 15 or 16 titles, and most of them are Latin American works.
21:24Yes. Yes. What's happening is that in Madrid it's being seen as a process of appropriation of literature.
21:31Latin American,
21:32especially from the boom. So, we're interested in tracking the canonization process of important works of literature
21:42Latin American
21:44and assess what is happening in Madrid.
21:48Does the Cervantes Institute support that?
21:50No. There is an institution called the Research Promotion Society in Japan.
21:57So, we are proposing this project to that institution.
22:01And what Colombian titles are included there?
22:03One Hundred Years of Solitude, definitely.
22:05Yes. And some other more recent ones or...?
22:09No, no, no. In this project, only One Hundred Years of Solitude. Then, there are important works of Latin American literature,
22:17I translated both of them into Japanese: The City and the Dogs, The Most Transparent Region.
22:25What is your favorite word from Colombian Spanish?
22:29Colombianism.
22:30Colombianism.
22:31May I always remember.
22:32Look, I'm always curious, because they address me as "your grace," right?
22:40And your grace, I have done such and such for you. Yes, yes, yes. I give a lecture and the audience...
22:46There's always someone who addresses me with respect.
22:48I like it?
22:50I don't know, I feel strange, you know?
22:52Yes, because I don't consider myself that important. I don't consider myself your honor, do I?
22:58Uh-huh. And of course, that way of approaching the customer is right, isn't it?
23:05Elsewhere they say, I'm at your service, at your service, at your service. But at your service, right? Me
23:12It sounds very nice.
23:13Okay. But do you plan to maintain contact with Colombia?
23:18Of course, of course. I will continue to pay the debt.
23:20And I've also seen that he's working, he's worked on translations of Leonardo Padura, the Cuban writer.
23:27Are you interested in his crime novel?
23:30Yes, I have also translated The Man Who Loved Dogs and Like Dust in the Wind.
23:36which are the two most important novels for me by Leonardo Padura.
23:40Yes, yes, yes. I have personal contact with Padura. Last year I met him in Barcelona at the awards ceremony.
23:46from the Tusquets prize, there in Barcelona.
23:49Yes, yes, yes.
23:51Okay. Don't forget this name, Professor Terao Ryukichi.
23:56You will surely find translations of Japanese literature into Spanish done by him.
24:01So, let's accept his invitation, get closer to Japanese culture, and he will continue to light our way.
24:08Thank you for your visit, professor.
24:09No, thank you very much, Nelson.
24:11And thank you for following El Espectador interviews.