Readers of "The Devotion of Suspect X" - Questions for the Translator?

I'll be getting in touch with those who've reviewed ER book The Devotion of Suspect X too, but I thought I'd post here to provide a good central location for posts. We've been offered an interview with translator Alexander O. Smith for an upcoming SOTT, so since many of the reviews mention the translation, I wanted to ask you all if you have specific questions for Smith about the translation process that you'd like the answer to. Feel free to post here, and I'll pass them along.
Thanks!

I'd mainly like to know if he plans to translate more books from this author.

Also, one thing I like about some books that take place in Japan is that they leave certain words in Japanese. I really appreciate this as a Japanophile. I learn something new and get a feel for Japanese. Why don't more translators feel free to leave some words in Japanese?

Excellent! Mr. Smith is one of my favorite translators currently working. Please feel free to use any of the following questions for inspiration.

Mr. Smith has worked on translations for many different publishers and imprints (Haikasoru, Vertical, Minotaur, etc...); how is his process affected by who he is working with?

Mr. Smith has also worked within many different genres (mystery, science fiction, fantasy, etc.); how does the genre matter when working on a translation?

Is the process of translating for various media (manga, video games, novels, etc.) very different, and what are the similarities?

Which translation is he currently most proud of or most nostalgic? Which one does he wish he could change or do over?

What was it like for you when Brave Story received the Batchelder Award?

I recently read that in some of the original english translations of the Count of Monte Cristo that certain passages were changed for fear they would offend Victorian sensibilities and other passages may have been left out due to the translator's decision that they were unnecessary.

I'm curious when Mr. Smith translates a book, how important is a literal translation and what is the decision making process on changes either to provide clarity or to take into consideration the audience for whom the translation is intended?

What was your reaction when you learned that Harmony was recently nominated for a Philip K. Dick award?

As a linguist and also some one who is fascinated by translation, not just between languages but cultures, what types of issues Mr. Smith had translating between American Culture and American English and Japanese Culture and language. Which ideas more more difficult to convey and why? Thank you.

How hard is it to translate from Japanese and get the same tone of the story? Can you find English words that are close enough to Japanese to keep the overall expressions the same? How long does it take to translate a book?

I'd also like to see more books from this author translated.

What types of things does he prefer to translate? Does he prefer translating genres or media that he enjoys outside of a work context? (I've heard from a few people that they actually like better to translate things that they wouldn't read on their own, for various reasons.)

The Japanese language often encounters difficulty in translation to English due to the nuances of word combinations, kanji used, word play, and the layers of emotion and politeness. Higashino and Miyabe are perhaps more stoic and structured in their word usage than Murakami Haruki and certainly less comical that Murakami Ryu but they usage of certain words makes for very atmospheric writing and textured feeling to what might seem in English as rather flat and unconvincing. Mr. Smith does attempt valiantly in countering this which leads to my curiosity as to his process. Does he interview the authors to get a strong feeling of their style? Does he read as large a body of their work for the same purpose? Lastly, what new challenges has he com across when dealing with the changes and growing injection of pop culture lexicon/katakana based words in more traditional literature?

I have not read as many translated books as some other readers here have, but I did spend a great deal of time with a Japanese friend. My friend's English was excellent; however he was occasionally challenged by American slang and colloquialisms. I wondered how Mr. Smith chose the best phrases to bring the characters to life. For example, if I wrote (in English) about people exchanging money, I may refer to the legal tender as “dollars”, “cash”, “bucks”, etc. Each word choice would be dependent on the character I was creating. This seems like it would be a very personal choice for the author, yet Mr. Smith made wonderful choices. I recently read “English” by Wang Gang (translated by Merz and Weizhen), overall, I found Mr. Smith’s translation to flow better then “English”; there seems to be quite an art to doing it well.

My question is similar to #9, but I'm coming at it from a different angle. As someone who studied poetry in particular in college, I'm very sensitive to a writer's sentence structure, diction and cadence. Often, nuances like this don't translate well since each language has it's own structural constraints. Are there aspects of Higashino's writing style that you worked in particular to capture in the English translation. Any aspects that just had to be lost in translation?

I'm probably echoing others here, but I was wondering how literal Smith's translations are. Additionally, I would like to know what his specific process is. For example, an author I enjoy who writes in the Irish language will write her poetry in Irish, then create a literal, word-for-word English translation, and then give that translation to an English language poet to rewrite. Methodology is quite important, and I am quite curious! :)

I have more of a publishing oriented question. How did you come to translate The Devotion of Suspect X? Were you aware of the book and go in search of a publisher? Or was the publisher already interested in the book and go in search of a translator? Did the recent success of the Stieg Larssons' books help "sell" the book to an American publisher?

If you are interested in AOS's bio, here is a link:

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_O._Smith

Thanks all - these are great!

Fascinating interview with Alexander O. Smith and Marilyn Dahl in today's issue of Shelf Awareness!

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1398#m11564

My question echoes Fred Bacon's: how did he get into translating? Did he have contacts in Japan, or did he work solely with US distributors like Tokyopop and Minotaur Books?

Sorry I forgot to post the full interview here - it went out with SOTT earlier this week!

Thanks again to all who submitted questions!