William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize Winners
To honor their late colleague William F. Sibley, The Department of East
Asian Languages & Civilizations and the Committee on Japanese Studies of
the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago have established
the William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize in
Japanese Literature and Literary Studies.
In keeping with William Sibley's lifelong devotion to translation and to the
place of literature in the classroom, the Sibley Prize awards $2,500 for the translation from Japanese into English of a work of fiction,
poetry, or drama (including screenplays), or scholarship in literary studies,
broadly understood. The purpose of the prize is to encourage classroom use and comparative research of the winning entries through publication on this website. Therefore, these translations are being made freely available for classroom and scholarly use.
Submissions for the 2011 Sibley Translation Prize are now being accepted. View the website for more details.
2010-11 Winners
Hara-kiri of a Woman at Nagamachi (Nagamachi onna-harakiri)
Written by CHIKAMATSU Monzaemon c.1712
Translated by Paul S. Atkins
Introduction to the text
Paul S. Atkins is Associate Professor of Japanese at the University of Washington, Seattle. A specialist in the literature, drama, and culture of premodern Japan, he is currently writing a book on the poetry and poetics of the early medieval courtier Fujwara no Teika.
Tenma
Written by KIM Saryang in 1940
Translated by Christina Yi
Introduction to the text
Christina Yi graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Japanese Language & Literature. Shortly after graduation, she left for Japan on the JET Program, working as a Coordinator for International Relations at Hamamatsu City Hall, Shizuoka Prefecture. She entered the Japanese Literature Ph.D. program at Columbia University in 2007. Her research focuses on the rise of Japanese-language literature by Korean colonial subjects during the 1930s and 1940s and its subsequent impact on discourse regarding "national" and "ethnic minority" literature in postwar Japan and Korea. She is currently conducting dissertation research at Waseda University as an exchange researcher and will remain in Japan until December 2012.
The Colonial Literature of Nakajima Atsushi
South Sea Tales: Happiness
Atolls: Napoleon
Landscape with Patrolman: A Sketch of 1923
Three short stories written by NAKAJIMA Atsushi in 1942
Translated by Robert Tierney
Introduction to the text
Robert Tierney is Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature in the Departments of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative and World Literatures in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His recent publications include Tropics of Savagery: the Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame (University of California Press, 2010). He is currently researching the history of Japanese adaptations of Shakespeare and Japan’s first anti-imperialist movement. He may be contacted at rtierney@illinois.edu.
White and Purple (Shiro to Murasaki)
Written by SATA Ineko in 1950
Translated by Samuel Perry
Introduction to the text
Samuel Perry is Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University. He is currently completing a book entitled Bread and Roses: Gender, Childhood and Literary Activism in Proletarian Japan as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Japanese Studies, UC Berkeley, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His translation of the Korean novel In’gan munje, written by Kang Kyŏng-ae in 1934, was recently published by the Feminist Press under the title From Wŏnso Pond.
