Paper short abstract:

This paper explores celebrity translators in the Meiji period, aiming to define the factors that earned them fame. The paper identifies: who these translators were; how the translators and their works were promoted; their popularity, translation practices; and their activities beyond translation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to define translator celebrity in the Meiji period, asking what factors earned prominent Meiji translators fame. The paper explores the fame of prominent translators Morita Shiken, hailed as the "King of Translation", Kuroiwa Ruikō, known as a pioneer of detective novels, Wakamatsu Shizuko, who established children's literature in Japan, and Mori Ōgai who introduced European philosophy, as well as brought innovation to contemporary Japanese theatre. The paper will identify the factors that created these translators' fame from several aspects, including the works of translation they produced, their activities beyond translation, publicity, and their use of printed media.

Existing research on Meiji translators focuses heavily on the works they produced and the prestige they attained for their contributions to cultural modernisation, especially between the early 1890s and early 1900s, when the number of volumes of translated European and American literature increased significantly. Literary translators who were also leading writers, poets, playwrights, scholars, journalists, editors or literary critics earned fame for the translations they produced. Although the roles of these translators were historically important in the cultural modernisation of Japan, as the existing research suggests, there are other aspects that created their fame. For example, the translators and their works were publicised, and the print media carried not only their works, but also narrative and gossip surrounding these famous translators' private lives.

This paper argues that factors such as publicity, the mass media, and readership, a previously underexplored area in the context of fame, are all important in discussions of Meiji translators' status. It will identify; how their works were promoted; what their activities beyond translation practices were; and how their readers received their work. The aim is to demonstrate the factors that created the Meiji translators' fame beyond simply translating.