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.

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.

News has come in from Japan of the death of Takumi Shibano, a well-known Japanese author, translator and fan. He was 83. Locus has a brief obituary online.