Nakahara Chûya and the Art of Translation
Web Exclusive: More Translations of Chûya’s Poems




“By age thirty he would be dead, and in his lifetime publish just one volume of poems in a small print-run, yet today the young man from Yamaguchi with the haunting stare is widely seen as one of 20th century Japan’s greatest poets. Nakahara Chûya (1907-37) is not only a nationwide subject of classroom study, but a romantic fixture in the minds of countless readers.”

—From the intro to a remarkable eight-page installment of KJ’s “In Translation” feature in issue #66.

To learn much more about Nakahara Chûya, and how two distinctly different translators approach bringing his work into English, see our print magazine. Included are a biography of Chûya, illuminating essays by translators Christian Nagle and Ry Beville, and several of their fine translations of Chûya’s poetry.

Collected with permission, here on our website only, are several more Chûya poems rendered in English by a variety of distinguished translators. (Two of these poems appear in Japanese, in Chûya’s own handwriting, as part of the print layout’s first-page design. They are reproduced here as well. Bilingual readers, look closely!)

Be sure to visit www.nakaharachuya.com