Abstract
This is a close examination of the English translation (2005) of Miyuki Miyabe’s Crossfire (1998) so as to show how the Japanese mystery is translated into English. It will be helpful for future translators to know some rules and methods revealed in this paper. By following the painful efforts of the two translators, Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki, I have generalized such know-how. While evaluating the two women’s work, I point out their careless mistakes. Whether on purpose or not, some omissions seem to be rather serious defects. Of course, other seeming weak points are not necessarily their faults. There are definite limits of translation, especially from Japanese into English: The nuances of some Japanese words like ofukuro and obasan are impossible to express in English. The young waiter’s distinctive way of talking also cannot be translated; his funny tones completely disappear in the English version, but that is an exact example of the impossibility of translation.
The paper consists of seven sections: Introduction: a summary of Crossfire, 1) the opening dream (contrary to the original, the English version cannot hide that the dreamer is a woman), 2) various ways of using italics (effective for emphasis, especially in inner monologues), 3) English counterparts of police terms (because of Captain Ito, the original "Captain" is changed into "Skipper"), 4) Chinese characters (in most cases, the meanings of kanji are just ignored, yet the ironical, literal meaning of Kei-ichi, the name of a criminal, is explained properly; Seika-Gakuen, a proper noun, is even translated as Essence Academy), 5) the limits of English translation and some countermeasures (literal translation is often meaningless to foreign readers, so English substitutes will be useful like cake for sekihan), and Conclusion: examples of bad omission and good translation (although several impressive scenes and words are carelessly removed, most of the thematic lines are duly translated). The best thing about the English version is that it includes the key word "crossfire," because it is not found in the original text, and most Japanese readers do not know what it really means even though it is the title of the novel they have enjoyed.
