ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the particular politics of gender found in the context of English translations of Japanese literature. It presents an overview of the translation of modern Japanese fiction, focusing specifically on gender. The chapter examines how women's works are translated and positioned, and addresses the related issue of how translation has been involved in the reproduction of representations of Japanese women. It examines the intersections of gender and translation by mainly focusing on onna kotoba, Japanese women's language. Translations of works by Japanese women authors have surely increased in quantity, but one cannot automatically assume that women's voices are better heard and represented than before. The chapter prompts a reassessment of Japanese exceptionalism and the exoticization of the Japanese language. The specific word choices of a translator are indications of how translation calls forth linguistic resources to reinforce or unsettle ideologies embedded in language.
