Snappy Seidensticker
Kurt Easterwood was doing a bit of research for a post on the shitamachi district of Tokyo for his blog when he came upon a wonderfully snappy dismissal of Murakami Haruki by none other than Edward Seidensticker which he sent along. (Seidensticker made a name for himself translating Kawabata Yasunori – he was instrumental in Kawabata being awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize for literature – and wrote Low City, High City, one of the definitive works in English on Tokyo history).
Seidensticker’s responses to some questions suggested that the accumulation of his own years has left him little time to waste. Abruptly interrupting a question about popular contemporary author, Haruki Murakami, Seidensticker snapped: “I try very hard to ignore him. I don’t like him and I don’t like his writing. I’m an old man. Why waste my time?”
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Posted to Books • 2002.07.02 (Tue) • 16:22
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