Meredith McKinney: Whose side are you on?

I had the pleasure of meeting one-on-one with Meredith McKinney this week. During our meeting, I complimented her on the beautiful writing in her translation of The Pillow Book. She responded to this by saying that it was “half her and half Sei Shonagon,” as she was translating a person. This complemented her talk well and gave me more insight into her translation work which I’ve come to greatly admire! Just as Professor McKinney translated Sei Shonagon, the person, she’s doing so as well with Lady Nijo.

Professor McKinney felt a responsibility to represent Lady Nijo’s story accurately and empathetically, as she identifies with her. But she must be careful not to impose her own projections onto Lady Nijo. This emotional intelligence from Professor McKinney was inspiring to hear, especially as she shared her awareness of wanting to soften uncomfortable scenes and learning to accept that Lady Nijo is not a modern woman. This is such an important aspect of translation, I believe, especially when translating classic works. I don’t have experience translating classics or works/authors from another time but if I ever happen to do so, this talk by Professor McKinney will be invaluable.

I also enjoyed hearing about the ambiguity of the Japanese language and the necessity of relying on context to translate well. Everything Lady Nijo wrote was about how she felt but the feeling words were very vague. With words having a range of meanings, Professor McKinney said she had to “feel her way through them.” This is interesting and I’d like to know if other Japanese translators take this approach. The translations by Whitehouse didn’t seem so...

Lastly, I like that Professor McKinney said she “had to travel a long way to find her [Lady Nijo] voice past a great wall of projection and apprehension” and she was certain that there was still more she would discover in future drafts. I think this is another great example of translations never being truly finished, as well as the fact that literature always holds more for us to uncover.

—Maria

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