UC Berkeley

In this dissertation I argue that the literary imagination of late nineteenth century Japanese travel narratives fixated on the figure of the translator as a model of success and mastery in the international forum who could bridge linguistic differences with aplomb. The figure of the translator during what I call ‘the moment of the translator’ from roughly the 1850s through the 1870s served a key purpose: he embodied a model of modern Japanese identity that could successfully move through international contexts, on Western terms, by means of his fluency in foreign languages. In chapter 1 I examine the multitude of historical figures who acted as translators in the late nineteenth century to argue that the cumulative force of their public stories created 'the moment of the translator.' In chapter 2 I consider one of the most popular fictional travel narratives to feature a translator figure: Kanagaki Robun's Seiyôdôchû hizakurige. Next, I consider the non-fictional travel writings and primers of Fukuzawa Yukichi to demonstrate how he implicitly models himself as a translator and successful participant in the international forum. I then turn to the travel writings of Nagai Kafû who wrote a generation later, and whose translator figure transforms into the figure of the wandering artist. Finally, I turn to the contemporary author Tawada Yôko to consider the subverted legacies of the translator figure, who comes into view again in Tawada's transnational, multilingual fiction.