It’s such a treat to welcome fellow journals of translation into the scene—and a rare one to welcome them back! We’re thrilled to announce that after a somewhat prolonged hiatus, acclaimed translators Ted Goossen and Motoyuki Shibata have put out the rebranded MONKEY: New Writing from Japan. The long-awaited edition features sundry gems from rising and established stars alike, and here to guide us through them is Assistant Managing Editor Lindsay Semel. Her interest in the project was piqued after covering prior MONKEY contributor Hiromi Kawakami’s People From My Neighbourhood (in Goossen’s own translation) for our August Book Club. Read on to learn why it paid off in spades!
After a nearly three-year hibernation, MONKEY: New Writing from Japan—formerly Monkey Business (2011–2017)—reemerged on the literary scene in full force this October. The annual journal aims to introduce anglophone readers to Japanese literature in its full depth and breadth. The mirror image of its eponymous predecessor, MONKEY is edited by two industry veterans who work in opposite directions: Ted Goossen, acclaimed translator from the Japanese, and his counterpart Motoyuki Shibata, one of the foremost translators of contemporary English literature into the same. Together, the two employ their formidable literary networks to facilitate the exchange of stories and ideas, challenge stereotypes, and offer promising new talent a foothold in a too-often impenetrable industry.
The high-profile likes of Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Itō, Hiromi Kawakami, and Mieko Kawakami, for example, appeared frequently in the pages of Monkey Business, and they all reappear in its new incarnation. Their participation lends both legitimacy and visibility to the journal, as well as prestige to their lesser-known colleagues. “Good Stories Originate in the Caves of Antiquity” is an interview between Murakami and Mieko Kawakami translated by Goossen. The last in a series of previously published conversations between the two, it enacts a sort of passing of the baton from the old to the new vanguard. Murakami insists equanimously that the “weight and strength [of ‘good stories’] have endured over great lengths of time—stretching back to those caves of antiquity”; meanwhile, Kawakami grills him on difficult topics like true evil and writers’ responsibility to speak to the suffering of their time. The result is simultaneously a philosophical treatise on the role of art in society, an insight into the thinking of two great public figures, a glimpse into the struggle between institutions and artists for the soul of the nation’s literature, and a gentle assertion that that soul need not submit to a single owner.
The heart of the publication, however, is its rich offering of delightful voices that have yet to garner much anglophone attention by other means. The story “Sushi,” for example, is a penetrating account of a young girl’s growing awareness of her incipient adulthood, triggered by a mysterious man who frequents her parents’ sushi shop. Through the shifting perspectives of an omniscient narrator, the girl’s awakening becomes embedded in a deftly illustrated social context: “On one occasion, Tomoyo’s forwardness became a cause of concern at school, but the matter was promptly put to rest when the teachers realized that Tomoyo worked at her parents’ sushi shop and this was just the sort of girl that she was.” The narrator inhabits the gaze of society before diving briefly into that of Tomoyo herself, and finally that of the mysterious customer. Written by the seldom translated early-twentieth-century writer Kanoko Okamoto, and translated by the rapidly up-and-coming (and Asymptote Editor-at-Large for Japan) David Boyd, “Sushi” is just one gem among the eleven that make up the section entitled “Food: A Monkey’s Dozen.”
MONKEY is organized by a logic that has nothing to do with genre, and very much to do with the connections and comparisons that readers are invited to draw as they move from one piece to the next. “Fujito: Victims of War” is an excerpt from a new translation of a fifteenth-century Noh play. As Jay Rubin explains in his introduction, it follows none of the conventions readers expect from a work of drama, marrying a mythological atmosphere with highly relevant themes. “Actors in Noh do not impersonate characters but instead participate at certain musically determined points in what amounts to the public recitation of a narrative. They drift in and out of the textual flow, which is largely driven by the chanting of the chorus,” Rubin reveals, orienting readers to envision the dramatic performance present in what may appear to be a prose text—the story of an island people caught up in skirmishes between local forces. Its depiction of the psychological relationship between the powerful and the powerless in the peace that follows great suffering resonates across centuries: “But instead you took my life—a deed rarer even than crossing the ocean on horseback,” a dead innocent accuses his murderer, awarded control of the island after his victory there. The excerpt is nestled among poems, essays, stories, and a graphic narrative. Juxtaposed, these pieces send the reader’s mind spinning through meditations on such ideas as loneliness, senseless violence, and the responsibility of an individual within a community. Perhaps such a list makes this edition of MONKEY seem heavy; I assure you that a sense of whimsy is never far from hand.
The entire journal is beautifully illustrated with commissioned drawings and photos. Strong colors and stark lines cocoon the writing in a cartoonish atmosphere, signaling to readers that they have unequivocally entered the realm of imagination. A hard copy would certainly be an impressive art object. Two graphic narratives further elevate the relationship between visual and language arts in the journal. Conveyed à la newspaper comic strip, “The Heart of the Lunchbox” is the sweet story of a little boy coming to appreciate the heroic efforts of his single mother through the food she packs him for school. Through the contrast between dull and bright colors and the tender expressions on the protagonists’ faces, the reader’s sympathies are quickly won. The skillful interplay of text and illustration transports us to the fantasy, tenderness, and myopia of childhood.
A final, unique section is entitled, “Why hasn’t this been translated? Remarks from nine translators.” Brilliantly, these mini essays from voices we have come to trust keep our mouths watering for literary treasures just out of our reach. They help to create a readerly demand, the perceived lack of which is almost certainly the answer to the section’s titular question.
In short, the re-inauguration of MONKEY is an event to be celebrated. This first edition creates a strange and wonderful world peopled by friends both old and new, characterized by emotion and magic, and encompassing a literary terrain that expands over vast fields of time and space.
Lindsay Semel is an assistant managing editor for Asymptote. She daylights as a farmer in North-Western Galicia and moonlights as a freelance writer and editor.
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