Paul Atkins, Professor of Japanese, has been awarded the Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize in Japanese Literature, Thought, and Society by the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University.
One of two winners of the competition for 2021, Atkins was awarded the prize based on excerpts from his book-length translation of Shōkenkō 蕉堅稿, a collection of 170 poems in classical Chinese by Zekkai Chūshin 絶海中津 (1336-1405). Zekkai was a medieval Japanese Zen monk, abbot, and accomplished poet who lived in China for nine years at the beginning of the Ming dynasty. As adviser to shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, he was involved in the restoration of official relations between Japan and China in 1401. The selection committee noted that “the translation of these texts into English, along with the transcriptional work that accompanied them, constitutes both a prodigious scholarly effort and a milestone in studies of this genre and period.”
Here is a sample from the awarded work, one of a series of fifteen poems titled “Living in the Mountains”:
嬾拙無堪世事勞
沈冥髙臥興滔滔
連窓樷竹深聽雨
暎屋新松纔學濤
一榻寥寥蝸室闊
九衢袞袞馬塵髙
久知簪組為人累
製得荷衣勝錦袍
Being lazy and inept, I cannot abide the worldly hustle and bustle.
Descending into the darkness and living among the lofty are what excite me.
I hear rain fall on the thick stands of bamboo outside my window
and the young pine that glows by the house sounds a little like waves.
This single cot is lonely and the place is as big as a snail’s shell;
the nine avenues of the capital are crowded and horses raise the dust high.
For a long time I have known that offices and rank are a burden,
and a homespun robe of lotus leaves is better than a cloak of brocade.
Established in 2014, the Selden Prize honors the scholarly legacy of Kyoko Selden (1936-2013) who taught at Cornell for many years and was a distinguished critic, editor, and translator of extraordinary scope. It is awarded for unpublished translations as a way of encouraging translation from Japanese into English of important humanistic texts and is accompanied by a cash award of $2,500.