Why? 왜? ¿Por qué? Почему?

Originally published in 1998 in Japan and first translated by Stephen Snyder in 2013, Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales is a collection of 11 short stories that are linked together in curious ways. The stories range from whimsical to outright dark and teach us that we should never fuck with women. As much as men want to belittle them, women have the capacity to fuck you up right. Well, not fucking you upright, but I’m sure they can do that as well. As a platinum gay, I’m not quite sure about the mechanics.

As great as it was reading this, whenever I read translated material I always have something gnawing at me in the back of my mind: Is this really how the author intended that sentence to read? When I hear people talk about what a great translation a certain publication is, I wonder how they know. Unless you are fluent in the original language, how do you know if this is a great translation? I hear YouTubers say this a lot, and I just wonder if they’re just echoing from a press release or what they hear other people saying.

I don’t know how true to the original this translation is, but it was a quick fun read. Perfect for this Halloween season.