Tag: Strange Pictures

I think this is what I wanted all along

There is a part of me that is almost embarrassed at the fact that, after having written and published one book, and having three translations published, with two more scheduled in the next year, I am JUST NOW realizing that hey, maybe I’m not just faking this? Maybe I’m in the book business?

I have been a reader since, well, ever. I think I started reading when I was five, and by the time I was in first grade I was burning through the library. Books were just… There. They were a fundamental building block of my identity. It’s not even something I consciously thought about, but hey. I love books and the reading (and purchasing, borrowing, lending, touching etc. thereof) about as much as anything I can think of.

And of course I always toyed with writing, the way a cat toys with a mouse that it never really intends to eat. “Someday, I shall pounce and then success will be mine!” I would think, while my prey sneaked away, limping but triumphant. Because, of course, writing takes perseverance and dedication and effort, and I sometimes fail to find those virtues in stock.

But now that I am not only someone whose name is on book covers, but someone whose name is familiar to PUBLISHERS and AUTHORS (a famous horror author just posted a pic of his ARC of Strange Pictures, with my name on the cover!!!), I think I can finally admit… This is something that I’ve wanted, without really knowing it, all my life.

I think I must have always wanted to be a book person. A writer, an editor, a guy in the biz. And I think that’s what I’ve got now. I’m visiting a book publisher and two international rights agencies in Tokyo at the end of the month. When I mentioned I would like to visit, they all said “Great! We’d love to meet! When?” rather than “Who are you again?”

The feeling of that. The—admittedly ego-centric, selfish, privileged, yes, I am so privileged and lucky but still—DAMN GOOD feeling of it is something else. I don’t deserve to have this good a life, but it’s here. So I guess I’ll live it.

Anyway. Feels good to get that off my chest.

You know what also feels good? My name in a starred review in Publishers Weekly.

By the way, please maybe consider buying my book, Discovering Yamaguchi Sake. And the ones I translated that are also kind of mine. Thank you!

Translating Uketsu

There’s this… I suppose “content creator” is the right term, though I hate it, in Japan called Uketsu. Uketsu is a mystery. He (it seems they’re a he, or at least the agencies involved have confirmed that for international sales purposes) writes articles for websites, creates narrative and music videos on YouTube, and publishes books, all in this very strange overlap of creepy, humorous, and cute. Uketsu appears in a black body suit and white mask, and uses a voice changer set to a rather cute, high pitched tone.

My first hint that Uketsu should be a “he.” Internet Writing Man…

My wife started out watching the videos in late 2021, I think, and got me hooked. Then I found the articles, and soon came the books, and my translator sense started tingling. I wanted to bring this very odd, very unusual ouevre to English audiences, and I thought it would sell. So, around the end of 2022, I put together a little sample of the debut book Strange Houses (変な家) and author intro for Pushkin Vertigo, with whom I had just finished working on Seishi Yokomizo’s The Devil’s Flute Murders (available now wherever you buy your books!). I sent it—as well as my strong personal recommendation to get on this very new, very original author—to Daniel Seton, the editor I’d worked with on that previous book. I made sure to mention my belief that, while Strange Houses was a fascinating book, Uketu’s second Strange Pictures 変な絵, was perhaps a more solidly structured, more confident work. Pushkin started doing their whole thing.

The video that started things off, Strange Houses 変は家, with English subtitles.

I’ve only seen the process from the outside, so I can’t say exactly how it works. I’m assuming there was some kind of internal meeting and review process, and they probably asked someone else to read the books and give impressions. I know for sure that last does happen because I’ve done it for other works. Anyway, sometime in the spring of 2023, Pushkin told me that they had made a successful offer on Uketu’s two books (these have since been announced officially, so I think I’m safe to say that much) and Daniel asked if I would be available to translate them.

Of course, of course, of course.

At that point, it was simply a happy outcome. I had set my sights on getting a project through, and it had been successful. I could get about my work as a translator, like I had so many times before.

Then, things began to change. It started to feel like this was going to be a big deal.

Earlier this year, right around when I finished the initial draft for Strange Pictures—which Pushkin (rightly, in my opinion) decided to release first, despite it technically being Uketsu’s second book—I heard that the author had become “the” hot topic at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the largest international book event in the world. Someone from a major international author agency contacted me because they were handling international rights for all the languages except English (since Pushkin had beaten everyone else to the punch on that…) and wanted my help putting together PR material. Pushkin asked me for quotes to use in their press releases and promotional materials.

Pushkin is even releasing teaser videos.

I’d never experienced that sense of being “plugged in” with anything before. My previous translations for publication had been much more subdued, even with the Yokomizo book. It’s all very unexpected, and I don’t know what might be coming next. There’s this silly little part of me that’s like, “Movie deal when? Netflix series next?” but of course, I’m just the translator. None of that has anything to do with me.

Still.

It feels new. It feels exciting to be part of a thing that makes a splash. I’m glad I could help share Uketsu’s very weird but very fun work with a broader audience and I hope it brings him more well deserved success. Whatever comes, I think it’s OK to feel a bit of pride that I helped get Pushkin and Uketsu together before anyone else.

When the time comes, I plan to post something a bit more detailed about the books as they come out, but for now, take this as an announcement, too. Strange Pictures is scheduled for release in January 2025 from Pushkin Vintage, translation by me. Jim Rion. Strange Houses will follow. Both have also been sub-licensed to an American publisher, but I don’t know their schedule.