For-profit

Rebecca Copeland’s translation of Kirino Natsuo’s Grotesque was published by a for-profit publisher. Lots of negotiations happened behind the decision to modify the original text and cut out scenes and characters. Or were there?

 

Copeland mostly “agreed with the editorial instinct” even though she was used to doing authentic translation with university press. But to agree with the instinct is to sacrifice her own judgment. Editors cut out the final pages of the book, arguing that the last chapter was inconsistent with the rest—they were saying that the composition of the original text was a result of bad writing to the eyes of American readers. Would Copeland agree with this? Afterall, cutting out unsophisticated texts is what editors do, right? I think Copeland’s agreement reflects not her judgment but her inexperience working with for-profit publishers. She came up with the clever, moral compromise that reshaping the original text is acceptable if it can recreate the same reading experience for American readers. But did she really think that Grotesque would not have its same impact on American readers as it had on herself? Would it still be acceptable to reshape the text just to really ensure that American readers could feel the same sensations?

 

-Marcus