Worlding Sei Shonagon ─ The Pillow Book in Translation

The Makura no S(shi, or The Pillow Book as it is generally known in English, is a collection of personal reflections and anecdotes on life in the Japanese royal court composed around the turn of the eleventh century by a woman known as Sei Sh(nagon. Its opening section, which begins haru wa akebono, or "spring, dawn," is arguably the single most famous passage in Japanese literature.

Throughout its long life, The Pillow Book has been translated countless times it has captured the European imagination with its lyrical style, compelling images and the striking personal voice of its author. Adding Sei Sh(nagon guides the reader through the remarkable translation history, of The Pillow Book in the West, gathering, almost-fifty translations of the "spring, dawn" passage, which span one hundred and thirty-five years and sixteen languages. Many of the translations are made readily available for the first time in this study.

The versions collected in Worlding Sei Sh(nagon are an enlightening example of the many ways in which translations can differ from their source text, undermining the idea of translation as the straight-forward transfer of meaning from one language to another, one culture to another. By tracing the often convoluted trajectory through which a once wholly foreign literary work becomes domesticated - or resists domestication - this compilation also exposes the various historical, ideological or other forces that shape our experience of literature.

Valerie Henitiuk is senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia and director of the British Centre for Literary Translation.