Translating The Honjin Murders: A Guest Post from Louise Heal Kawai

This locked-room mystery from the father of Japanese classic crime is finally available in English for the first time. The author of Murder at the Black Cat Café delivers another puzzle of a story in The Honjin Murders. Read on for an exclusive essay from Louise Heal Kawai on translating Seishi Yokomizo’s The Honjin Murders.

In 2019 I was asked by Pushkin Press to translate Seishi Yokomizo’s iconic locked room murder mystery Honjin Satsujin Jiken – The Honjin Murders. The tale was first published in serial form between 1946 and 1947 in the magazine Houseki, and subsequently won the prestigious 1948 Mystery Writers of Japan Award. Wildly popular at the time, the novel was the public’s first introduction to the character who would become the most famous Japanese detective of all time: Kosuke Kindaichi. The bumbling, scruffy young man who, in contrast to Japan’s growing preference for western fashions, clung stubbornly to a traditional style of dress, had a sharp mind in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, and, just like Holmes, would end up more of a household name than his author.

A heavy responsibility indeed for a translator to bring Kindaichi’s debut to the English-speaking world. Thankfully however, describing the main character was not too much of a challenge. There is a colourful description of the detective on his initial appearance in the novel, but also very helpfully, Yokomizo’s novels have been made into films and serialized for TV countless times over the years. There is even a commemorative bronze statue of Kindaichi in Okayama prefecture, imagining the detective in his dishevelled glory.

What proved more challenging was the architecture. A locked room murder mystery has to be precise in detail, allowing the reader to clearly imagine the physical space, and also have a fighting chance of solving the puzzle before the conclusion. Not only was it necessary to depict buildings in faraway Japan, but as the novel is set in 1937, to describe architecture over 80 years old. There are features of a vintage Japanese house that simply do not exist in the west, and therefore have no equivalent word. Doors and windows are relatively simple, but how to explain rain shutters, ventilation systems, sliding screens, standing screens…? Thankfully, Yokomizo provided his own hand-drawn plan of the Annexe House in which the murders take place, but even labelling the various components was a difficult task.

In the main text of the novel, I tried to strike a balance between using Japanese terms for which there was no direct translation and adding extra descriptive passages to explain further. After the first use of a Japanese word for an item or architectural feature I added an approximate English equivalent, such as genkan entranceway, ranma transom, and byobu screen, often followed by a brief description. In each subsequent occurrence I would switch between the Japanese or English word in the hope of gradually familiarizing the reader with the new term. Of course, in the age of the internet, readers can quickly look up a word, but ideally a novel should absorb their attention, and focus should not be pulled from the action.

I was quite pleased with the outcome, but one feature eluded me. What on earth was a kozaru? From context I knew it was a door lock, but an online search offered few clues, and nobody I asked could help. I needed to know whether it should be pushed, raised, slid or turned to open. This was where research became fun. I visited a famous Yokohama park that was home to several vintage buildings, and spoke with their specialist caretaker who finally solved the mystery for me, allowing me to translate the passage accurately.

I hope you enjoy solving the mystery of The Honjin Murders, and of course there is no shame in allowing the great Kosuke Kindaichi to get there before you. It is a tricky one.