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Hello and welcome to the Spectators Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator,

and this week we're going to be talking about Yuko Mishima whose 1962 novel Beautiful Star which he at least according to Wikipedia

considered his masterpiece has been translated into English for the very first time and I'm

joined today by its translator Stephen Dodd Steve welcome now why it, if it's the masterpiece of a three-time

Nobel-nominated writer who stands at the way head of the Japanese canon, why has it taken 60 years

for a beautiful start coming to English? Good question. And so I start with a confession, which is that when I was speaking to Penguin, I had remembered in the back of my head that Mishmir said it was his masterpiece. But actually, he had said it was one of his best works. And I'd misremembered it. So the advertising bump will have to change in the future.

But it is an outstanding work, I think it is.

I agree with Michimani.

It's one of its best works.

Sorry about that to start with.

But does it present particular difficulties in translation, or does it present a difficulty in kind of speaking to a Western audience?

I mean, is there a reason that it hasn't gone into it?

You know, a number of his works have been in print in English for many years, haven't they?

Well, I think partly it's to do, or not partly, I think largely it's to do with the actual theme of the book,

which is a, which is a, you could say it's a sci-fi story, it's about flying sources.

And there is, I mean, if I can give you a little bit back, a background to the literary

styles in Japan. Basically, in modern Japanese literature, there were two styles. One is

called in Japanese, Jumbunggaku, meaning pure literature. In other words, high-brow literature. And then

there's Taishu-Bungaku, which is popular fiction. He was, I mean, Mission was so good at what he did. He was such a, I mean, you could say

...