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Selected Translations by W. S. Merwin

John Nathan, translator of Kenzaburō Ōe and Yukio Mishima, recently commented on returning to the work of the Meiji-era Japanese author Natsume Sōseki: “It was so surprisingly interesting,” he said, “that I was curious whether any translations existed in English. I found just one and remember thinking as I opened it how much I hoped that it was a fantastic translation, because,” he laughed, “then I wouldn’t feel like I had to do anything.” The feeling that one has to do something is familiar to many translators who have encountered something magical in another literature and found either nothing translated into English or something translated that did not quite bring out the magic. The sense of responsibility for representing a voice, a work, a culture, a writer, a tradition are all familiar aspects of translation to many translators. This combined sense of magical discovery and simultaneous responsibility is often at the heart of the motivation to translate. W. S.Merwin’s SelectedTranslationsdoes not seem to have beenborn from such an impulse; it is not that kind of book. In one of the three essays the translator offers in reflecting on his own past practice, Merwin comes to the following formulation of his aims: