午夜剧场

I wonder how many students today know the name of Horiguchi Daigaku, who was a translator, poet, and tanka poet. After I published this book, a student contacted me happily saying, "The translator of the book I was reading was Horiguchi Daigaku!" In fact, even before that, I had seen students clutching poetry collections translated by Horiguchi as if they were precious treasures, and I believe people often encounter his translations without even realizing it. When you think about it that way, the role Horiguchi played as a translator is extremely important. This book is an attempt to re-examine the activities of the translator Horiguchi Daigaku within the broader context of translated poetry collections and modern Japanese literature.

Horiguchi, who joined the Shinshisha (New Poetry Society) in his teens and began his career as a tanka poet in the literary magazine "Subaru," originally had an interest in new language. He then spent most of his twenties in foreign lands, accompanying his father, who was a diplomat. By carefully examining his activities in the literary magazines where he was active, a picture emerges of how Horiguchi Daigaku himself transformed into an existence imbued with exoticism through the translations, poetry, and essays he sent from distant foreign lands. Horiguchi attracted the attention of the literary world by publishing the translated poetry collection "Gekka no Ichigun" (A Group Under the Moon), and his style using colloquial language greatly stimulated young readers. Those translated poems are still read by young people today.

Also, we must not forget that Horiguchi energetically translated the works of Paul Morand, a French modernist writer said to have influenced the Shinkankakuha (New Sensation School), a group of young literary figures in Japanese modernist literature. From Horiguchi's essays on Morand and a detailed comparison between the original texts and the Japanese translations, it is clear that Horiguchi introduced Morand to the Japanese literary world as a "new" writer. Of course, Morand was known as a "new" writer in France as well, but Horiguchi's translations garnered attention because they matched the "newness" sought in Japan at that time.

Looking at Horiguchi's confusion and nostalgia as a Japanese person—which was rare at the time in foreign lands—through his poetry and essays, one can see that in Horiguchi's creative world, his self in Japan and his self in foreign lands are blended together. By engaging with Horiguchi's works after reading this book, I believe you will be able to feel their charm even more deeply.

Azusa Omura

Seikyusha

258 pages, 4,400 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.