Stella Soffía Jóhannesdóttir, Rights Director at Reykjavík Literary Agency, was recently invited to lecture on Icelandic and Nordic literature at the Department of Nordic Studies at Tokai University, just outside Tokyo. The visit was arranged by Yuriko Shibayama, associate professor at Tokai, and Stella made the most of it by meeting Japanese publishers, translators and readers along the way.
The lecture came on her second day, jet lag and all, but the students made it worthwhile. As they study the Nordic region as a whole, they brought a broad perspective and a real curiosity about Icelandic literature and its roots.
Later in the week, Stella joined Tiia Strandén from FILI at the Embassy of Iceland in Tokyo to present Icelandic and Finnish literature. There she shared a story about how small the world can be. As a child, she met a Japanese man who was staying at her grandparents’ home. He went on to teach at the very same department at Tokai and wrote an Icelandic textbook, in which, on page sixteen, he explains the difference between two “ll” sounds using the words “fjall” and “Stella.” She suspects her grandparents had a hand in that.
At the Nordic Book Festa, Stella read from Icelandic children’s books and joined a panel with Yuriko and Shohei Akakura, one of only three translators in Japan who work directly from Icelandic. She also took part in a workshop for emerging translators from Norwegian.
The trip soon became a small book fair of its own, with a full day of meetings with children’s publishers at Tuttle-Mori and another with publishers of adult books, arranged by Japan UNI Agency.
A walk through Jimbōchō, Tokyo’s bookshop district, left Stella and Tiia agreeing that there is plenty of room on those shelves for more Nordic books. Above all, Stella came home struck by how much Japan and Iceland have in common.
