I had a lovely surprise recently, and have been waiting for an opportunity to mention it. The distinguished Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa read my book ‘Out of Silence’ recently, and told me that she would like to translate it into Japanese. She has now been commissioned to do so for the Tokyo publishing house of Shunju-sha, who specialise in books on arts subjects, memoirs and philosophy.
This feels like a very special development, partly because in the world of pianists, it might be fair to say that there’s often more spirit of competition than of collaboration. Therefore it’s amazing – and heartwarming – to hear that another pianist likes my book so much that she’s prepared to spend a considerable portion of next year translating it, despite her own busy concert schedule. It’s also very pleasing that this initiative should come from Japan, a country whose art I have admired for so long. Altogether, Noriko’s project is one of the nicest things that has happened to me this year.
Noriko Ogawa is best known in this country as a performer, of course, but she is also well known in Japan for her articles about music and musicians, and she writes a regular column in one of Japan’s most widely-read piano magazines.
This is such a great news, not only for you as the auther, but also for pianists, musicians and music-lovers in Japan, to be able to share your book. Fantastic! I am a Japanese, living in UK, and have enjoyed reading your books greatly… and do identify with a lot of what you say.
It’s exciting that this book is to be translated. Can’t compete with that but I think I may be the only person on the Isle of Colonsay to have read Out of Silence over the Christmas period. We have a house here and when we arrived from Edinburgh on 22 Dec we found deep snow and ice. Colonsay has not had such snow for 27 years. So we lit the stove and I really enjoyed the book in our warm house. I am retired music lecturer and great lover of chamber music. I have several Domus and Florestan Trio recordings in my collection. Interesting that Viennese audiences are so involved with chamber music. I spent 1969 there as a research student.
Thank you for making my Christmas so enjoyable.
Alison Guest