Hi, everyone.


I will soon have to translate about 60 pages of a Japanese novel which has not yet been translated into English. The problem is that I have never really read novels in Japanese so far and besides classical Japanese literature I barely know of any Japanese authors.


So…., therefore…could someone kindly recommend something easy to read published in the recent years? It can be anything, though I prefer comedy or psychological stuff (dostojevsky style).


Really grateful for any advice.

Why do you have to translate a Japanese novel? Is it for a class?

If you can read through classical Japanese literature then you can read through a Japanese novel.

Here are some novels I read recently:

MAMA
闇の船
Eragon (Japanese version)
1984　　（Japanese version)

森絵都 (Mori Eto)'s books are pretty easy, lots of furigana. I think "Colorful" is going to be translated, but the rest won't be. Also, all the 魔女の宅急便 (Kiki's Delivery Service) novels besides the first haven't been translated. Try something like those two, with a lot of furigana, if you're new to Japanese novels.

キノの旅 is my favorite read when I'm looking for something dark and psychological, and only the first has been translated, but it has much less furigana than the other two, so I wouldn't try it until you've read a few more novels, or a lot of manga.

Bokusenou Wrote:森絵都 (Mori Eto)'s books are pretty easy, lots of furigana. I think "Colorful" is going to be translated, but the rest won't be.

I just read つきのふね by 森絵都, and for a novel it was really easy.

Comedy would be pretty difficult to translate I think.

The other book I read which was also easy was 出口なし by 藤ダリオ, which is a horror along the lines of Saw (the movie) I guess it's kind of psychological.

edit: my copy of つきのふね didn't have much furigana, but I could read most of the vocab at JLPT N2+ level.

I'm interested in finding some lower level novels (JLPT N3 maybe) if anyone knows of any.

I think 出口なし is definitely on the very easy side. Because there are very few locations and very few characters the vocab used is really limited.

Realism Wrote:Why do you have to translate a Japanese novel? Is it for a class?

If you can read through classical Japanese literature then you can read through a Japanese novel.

Yes, it's for a class... The one's I have read were but English translations.


Thanks everyone. Some more suggestions maybe? xD

Mystery crime novel：殺人列車への招待 - 西村京太郎　(published 1987)
Basically a man phones Inspector Totsugawa and challenges him to find him and stop his murders.

It's quite an easy read I think as there's not much variety in the situations.
It cycles through: murder occurs on a train->investigation->press conference-> next murder occurs on a train etc