JAPAN STUDIES LUNCHTIME SPEAKERS SERIES, 2024-2025
This talk will discuss the features of the 10th century Ochikubo monogatari as a piece of popular fiction in the Heian period. These features include an emphasis on plot and a narrative style that relies heavily on dialogue and interior monologue. The tale is considered a parody of the genre of the “wicked stepmother” scenario. The speaker is in the completion stage of a new translation of the work and will read excerpts to illustrate strategies she has developed to bring the tale to life for a 21st century audience. She will also comment on how this process has pushed her to significantly revise (even abandon) the approach she followed in her previous translations of the Heian diaries, Kagerō Diary and Sarashina Diary.
This talk is free and open to the public. No registration is required.
Date & Time:
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 | 12:30pm – 2:00pm (PDT)
Location:
Asian Centre Auditorium, 1871 West Mall, Vancouver
Speaker
Sonja Arntzen, MA (1970) and PhD (1979) University of British Columbia, taught at the University of Alberta and University of Toronto. Now living in Vancouver, B.C., she continues her research and writing on Japanese literature of the Heian and Medieval eras. Her monographs include: Ikkyū and the Crazy Cloud Anthology (Tokyo University Press, 1986 revised and expanded edition, Quirin Press, 2022), The Kagerō Diary (University of Michigan, 1997), The Sarashina Diary: A Woman’s Life in Eleventh Century Japan, (Columbia University Press, 2014, Reader’s Edition, 2018) Her current project is a new translation of the Ochikubo monogatari, working title, Lady of the Low Chamber.
