The professor of Japanese and doctor in Catalan philology Ko Tazawa has died in Kobe at the age of 68 as a result of cancer. As a translator, he is responsible for the Japanese version of works such as Tirant lo Blanc, by Joanot Martorell, and La plaça del Diamant, by Mercè Rodoreda.
Ko Tazawa stood out as a trainer of experts in Catalanistics in Japan and for the multiple translations he produced, both from Catalan into his language, and vice versa.
Despite the advanced state of his illness, this July Ko Tazawa was able to fulfill his wish to travel to Catalonia for the last time, where he presented his autobiographical book Petjades d'un Japonès and was the subject of a tribute from the Ramon Llull Institute and the Institute of Catalan Studies, where he gave a talk on the new Japanese-Catalan / Catalan-Japanese Dictionary, which he had just finished and which will soon be published by Enciclopèdia Catalana.
Doctorate in Hispanic Studies from the University of Osaka and in Catalan Philology from the University of Barcelona, he was also a professor in the Department of Intercultural Studies at Hosei University in Tokyo.
Born in Yokohama in 1953, he quickly realized that he had a facility for languages. At the end of the seventies, when he worked in a Japanese bank, he was sent to Barcelona with the aim of learning Spanish, because “they wanted to open a branch in Madrid, before Spain entered the Common Market; It was the moment of the first Statute and there was a boil, ”he explained in May to La Vanguardia from Kobe in a telematic interview.
But he realized that he did not like the work of the bank and since then, spending time in Barcelona and Queralbs, he dedicated himself to translating the main works of Catalan literature into Japanese.
He explained about that new professional stage: “The Catalan subject attracted me and I did my doctoral thesis. Since he knew English, it was easy to learn Spanish and also Catalan, which after all are two very similar languages. It wasn't too difficult for me because all three are from the same Indo-European language family."
Thanks to Ko Tazawa, his compatriots have been able to read in Japanese, among others, La plaça del Diamant, Camí de sirga, La pell freda and even Tirant lo Blanc. “It took me ten years. It is not a best seller, but the reception was good because knowledgeable people know that Cervantes had described it as the best novel of chivalry”, he recalled.
Ko Tazawa went further and did the opposite: he translated books from Japanese to Catalan, such as Història de Shunkin, by Junichiro Tanizaki; Rashomon by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa; Deu nits, deu somnis, by Soseki Natsume, and so on up to ten titles, with the Lapislázuli publishing house, “for a greater diffusion of Japanese literature in Catalonia”, he defended.
But he knew how to recognize his limitations: “The problem is that I am not a native Catalan and, therefore, I do not have a literary style. So I devised a way to do it: a good Catalan writer has to correct what I translate. This writer is Joaquim Pijoan” (Sant Jordi award in 2006 with Sayonara Barcelona, Proa).
Ko Tazawa was honored with the Ramon Llull International Prize for Catalanism and Cultural Diversity (2019), received the Sant Jordi Cross from the Generalitat (2003) and was named an honorary member of the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language (2018).
Catalan version, here
