Will not forget both laughter and tears: Book launch/talk/event

April 3, 2014 (5:30 - 7:00 PM)

19 March 2014

Telus Centre Room 134
University of Alberta
5:30 - 7:00 PM

For details, please visit the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/287271884757370/

About the Book

Will not forget both laughter and tears
Tomoko Mitani
Translated and with an Introduction by Yukari F. Meldrum
Tomoko Mitani's stories and sketches reflect the everyday life of Japanese people from the point of view of a middle-class married woman, exploring memory as a site of both laughter and tears. These down-to-earth, conversational stories provide readers with a woman's honest response to a male-dominated society. In her translation, Yukari F. Meldrum finds the fine balance between maintaining the cadences of the original Japanese and providing English readers with more familiar phrases and cultural references. This collection of 23 short stories and a novella will appeal to many people, from readers of short story and travellers of the mind to scholars and students of translation and Japanese culture.

Tomoko Mitani was born in 1945 and grew up in Hokkaido, Japan. Married with two daughters, she worked as an instructor for Kumon, and her translator Yukari F. Meldrum was one of her students. In mid-life, while involved in various business ventures, Mitani began writing these short stories. The stories were first released in her self-published collection: Wasurenai, warai mo namida mo (2002). She lives in Sapporo, Japan. Yukari F. Meldrum enjoys bridging cultures through translation. She owns a translation company in Edmonton, Alberta.
232 pages • Translator's introduction, illustrations, notes
978-0-88864-544-9 • 6'' x 9'' • $24.95 (T) paper
Translation/Japanese Literature/Short Stories