Sakyō Komatsu, RIP

Haikasoru reports the sad death of the leading Japanese science fiction writer, Sakyō Komatsu. He was best known for his earthquake disaster novel, Japan Sinks, which sold over 4 million copies. There is a brief obituary in The Independent. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry for Komatsu can be found here.

Some Translation Links

Here are a few translation-related stories from around the blogosphere from the past few weeks:

– Jeff VanderMeer interviews Czech novelist and poet Michael Ajvaz;

– Concatenation lists Unseen Mainland European SF Classics;

– Nick Mamatas at Haikasoru blogs about one of their new releases: The Stories of Ibis by Hiroshi Yamamoto;

– Feng Zhang writes about a famous Chinese fanzine, Xin Huan Jie (New Realms of Fantasy and Science Fiction);

– Chad W. Post reviews Edie Grossman’s Why Translation Matters;

– Tim Parks tells The Guardian why translators deserve to be noticed;

– Edward Gauvin suggests that translating might be a bit like writing science fiction.