Beginning Tuesday, The Japan Times will serialize the classic Japanese detective story "The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi: Detective Stories of Old Edo," or "Hanshichi Torimonocho" in Japanese. Written by journalist-turned-novelist Kido Okamoto, sections of the novel, which is told through the eyes of a streetwise detective, will run from Tuesday through Saturday every week.
One of Japan's most beloved works of popular literature, the story was initially serialized monthly in the popular magazine Bungei Kurabu (Literature Club) starting in January 1917.
The translation, by Ian MacDonald, was published by University of Hawaii Press in 2007 under the Japanese Literature Publishing Project of the Cultural Affairs Agency starting in 2002. It is run by the Japanese Literature Publishing and Promotion Center (J-Lit Center).
The story was selected with support from J-Lit Center, a nonprofit organization that runs the agency's project and assists in translating, publishing and promoting contemporary Japanese literature abroad.
The project selected 106 titles, and many have already been published in English, French, German and Russian.
The translation by MacDonald, who holds a doctorate in Japanese literature from Stanford University, was awarded first prize in the Shizuoka International Translation Competition in 1997. MacDonald has translated the stories of Yukio Mishima, Yumiko Kurahashi and Kyoka Izumi, among others.
Beyond simply entertaining readers, by publishing the serialized story, an unusual move for an English-language newspaper, The Japan Times hopes to play a role in introducing Japanese literature to the wider English-speaking audience.
For more background and context see the complete introduction to "The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi: Detective Stories of Old Edo."