One of the Year’s Most Notable Translations Published by WMU’s Jeffrey Angles

Jeffrey Angles, an associate professor of Japanese in the WMU Department of World Languages and Literatures and director of the Soga Japan Center, recently published "Twelve Views from the Distance," a translation of the memoirs of Mr. Mutsuo Takahashi, one of Japan’s most important contemporary poets and writers. "World Literature Today" named Angles’ work as one of the year’s 75 notable translations and it is also a finalist for the 2013 Lamba Literary Award in the Gay Memoir/Biography category.

"Twelve Views from the Distance" is the story of a boy in a poor, rural family in southwestern Japan living through the worst years of the Japanese empire, World War II, and the postwar era.  Angles commented that when he read Takahashi’s memoirs for the first time as a graduate student, they haunted him.  “Not only is the book populated by beautiful and tragic characters, the descriptions of life in the countryside are so rich and vivid that it feels like the scenes are unrolling right before the reader’s eyes.”

Angles is planning to bring Takahashi to WMU in September 2013 as part of a larger book tour to promote the new translation.  He said, “I am excited to bring such a dynamic and brilliant writer to Michigan.  I promise that readers who hear his stories of war, depravation, and self-discovery will find them utterly unforgettable.”

Read a short excerpt from Angles’ translation of "Twelve Views from the Distance."