Panel 7: Semi-Imaginary Places and the Realities of Home in Japanese Literature and Popular Culture

Jeffrey Angles, Western Michigan University “Translating Yokohama: Self-Representation in Early Meiji Translations of Jules Verne” Abstract: In 1878, Kawashima Chūnosuke began publishing Shinsetsu: Hachi-jū nikkan sekai isshu, a translation of Jules Verne’s 1873 novel Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours. This book was important for several reasons. First, it was first translation of a French literary work done directly from the source. Second, it sparked a huge boom in translations of Verne’s novels. Third, it played an important role showing Japanese readers the world beyond their shores, and fourth, it positioned Japan within a larger hierarchy of nations, suggesting to Japanese readers where they ranked in terms of world civilization. Verne had never been to Japan and culled most of his information from outside sources, but he also embellished, creating a vision of Japan that sometimes diverged from reality. All of the Japanese scenes take place in Yokohama, so one might say that for Verne, Yokohama was an imagined place, a microcosm represented all of Japan. Yokohama, however, was also a real city—the same one where Kawashima lived so it is not surprising that in translating the book, he corrected many of Verne’s descriptions. As this paper argues, however, Kawashima’s reworkings do not stop at correcting erroneous descriptions of place. There is also an ideological, nationalist agenda at work as Kawashima attempts to position Japan advantageously vis-à-vis other nations mentioned in the text. These modifications in turn reflect larger and currents circulating in immediate postRestoration Japanese society, as Japan began to insist upon a dominant and increasingly aggressive role on the East Asian stage.