Abstract
Peter Dickinson is a British writer, though his birthplace is not in England : in 1927, he was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Africa, where his father had worked as a British civil servant. Young Dickinson spent his first seven years in this strange African country, which would probably influence his future career. After graduating from King’s College, Cambridge, in 1951, he started to work as assistant editor at Punch, the famous humor magazine. Thanks to his much experience of reviewing mystery novels, Dickinson himself succeeded in making his debut as a novelist in the same genre in 1968. His detective "James Pibble" series were quite popular in the 1970s among crime novel fans in the United States as well as the United Kingdom; most of them were translated and published even in Japan.
Now, however, Peter Dickinson seems to be recognized as a first-rate writer of fantasy and science fiction for young readers. In Japan it cannot be denied that his name sounds unfamiliar to most people, but it appears there are some avid fans of his fantastic world.
My Japanese version of "The Spring" belongs to this wonderful genre of fantasy for children. The work was chosen and translated from The Puffin Book of Ghosts and Ghouls (ed., Gene Kemp, Penguin, 1993). I hope that "The Spring" will be enjoyed in the Japanese language with some fresh surprise.
