William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize Winners

2011-06-27

William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize Winners

The University of Chicago's Center for East Asian Studies has announced the William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize Winners for 2010! The winners and recipients of our congratulations are:

Paul S. Atkins, for "Hara-kiri of a Woman at Nagamachi," his translation of Chikamatsu's Nagamachi onna-harakiri 長町女腹切;
Christina Yi, for her translation of Kim Saryang 金史良's Tenma 天馬 (a difficult-to-translate word literally meaning "heaven-horse" and applied to mythical and/or marvelous horses in various contexts);
Robert Tierney, for his translation of three south-seas colonial short stories by Nakajima Atsushi 中島敦; and
Samuel Perry (no relation, I presume) for "White and Purple," his translation of Sata Ineko 佐多稲子's Shiro to Murasaki 白と紫.

All translations are online for perusal and kibitzing, which is a most generous and pleasing way to go about things. Aozora Bunko has the originals of the Nakajima and Kim pieces, too.

Popularity factor: 5

L.N. Hammer:

Huh -- somehow I'd gotten the impression that 天馬 was specifically a pegasus, or more generically a winged horse.

---L.

I recall finding it strange that edict only gave てんば for 天馬 (my input method doesn’t even know てんば！). Fortunately they are good with the suggestion form, and now it includes てんま too. But the glosses are simply "flying horse; Pegasus".

while looking this I just learned of 天馬空を行く “to advance unobstructed”.

I wonder what’s the Chinese/East Asian folklore of 天馬？ ja.wikipedia also has “the horse that the Heavenly Emperor rides”.

Matt:

I will confess, I wasn't hip enough to have had a preexisting impression of what Tenma meant; my summary was based on Yi's intro. I do recall encountering it in metaphor form somewhere before though.

L.N. Hammer:

I've met the word in, um, a couple manga -- including at least two by members of the Year 24 Group. One's even titled 天馬の血族.

天馬空を行く is a pretty cool idiom. Fly like a heaven-horse, baby.

---L.

エリック:

my buddy has a massive 天馬　tattooed across his back

2011-06-27