Worlding Sei Shônagon: The Pillow Book in Translation

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements Many friends and colleagues have offered valuable feedback and suggestions throughout the time I have worked on this book, such that it is impossible to thank everyone by name. I do need—and very much want—however, specifically to acknowledge David Damrosch, for whose invaluable advice and generous encouragement from the initial conception I will remain eternally indebted, as well as Luise von Flotow, Eric Nelson and Marie Clausén of the University of Ottawa Press, who patiently guided me through the later stages. An explicitly multilingual and multicultural project such as this one could not come into being without the specialized input of numerous others. First and foremost, naturally, are the many translators who have made it possible for us to savour such a tremendous range of interpretations. Although representing only a small fraction of a much longer work, these few lines do allow us to glimpse something of the great thoughtfulness, care and talent each has brought to The Pillow Book, and it is my sincere hope that this tantalizing taste will inspire readers to explore more fully several of the complete translations. Further, the graduate students from as far afield as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Japan who took part in my 2008 “Process and Product in Literary Translation” seminar at the University of East Anglia (UEA) provided numerous insights of their own as we worked our ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii way through most of these translations and then crafted our own, often quite radical, versions. A jointly authored journal article, published with an accompanying CD of readings that resulted from that inspiring collaborative exercise, can be found in the bibliography under Henitiuk et al. The subsequent year’s class, equally cosmopolitan, also engaged enthusiastically with this material, and provided invaluable help with literal versions of the multilingual texts. (Specific acknowledgement for translation assistance is given below .) UEA postgraduate student Hiroko Furukawa provided research assistance in tying up several loose ends in the manuscript. Bella Brodzki and her 2007 undergraduate “Poetics and Politics of Translation” students at Sarah Lawrence College graciously allowed me an early opportunity to test the teachability of these materials, and their gratifyingly varied and enthusiastic responses helped significantly to shape the resulting book. As indicated above, a number of students, colleagues and friends contributed English renderings for the non-English texts, many giving unstintingly of their time to discuss the finer points of difference. Translation assistance was provided by Eric Abrahamsen, Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru , Imke Bindels, John Brown, Prue Chamberlayne, Nuray Çokgezen, Ana Maria Correa, Monika Dix, Katherine Durnin, Stephanie Hall, Blanka Hemelíková, Michael Holman , Alessio Iacovoni, Kristof Kozak, David Miller, Stephen Russon, Barbara Sheriff and Richard Thomson. Needless to say, responsibility for any errors that may have crept in lies solely with me. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix Humanities Research Council of Canada. In addition, financial support at the beginning of the project was provided by a postdoctoral fellowship awarded directly by SSHRC, which allowed me to devote two years to researching this and related projects. That fellowship was supplemented by the inaugural SSHRC Postdoctoral Prize (2005), again devoted to related research. I owe deep gratitude to Columbia University ’s Centre for Comparative Literature and Society, then under the directorship of Gayatri Spivak, for office space and library privileges during that same period. Last, but certainly far from least, W. Stuart White, my husband and tireless first reader, deserves undying thanks for never flagging in his encouragement and loving support. ...