Ursula Graefe is one of the most renowned German translators of Japanese literature, and a celebrity among literary enthusiasts. She is best known for her translations of Haruki Murakami’s works and has been responsible for almost all German editions of the bestselling Japanese author’s books for the past 25 years – a stroke of luck, as she puts it. She also enjoys translating lesser-known works by classic and contemporary Japanese authors into German. She is in no hurry to give up her “labour of love”. J-BIG spoke to her about her journey into translating Japanese literature, the creative and financial challenges of the profession, and the future of professional translation in the age of artificial intelligence.
J-BIG: How and when did you first come into contact with Japan?
Ursula Graefe: It wasn’t until I was a student in 1978. I started studying Japanese from scratch, despite having no personal connection to Japan or knowing anyone there. I think I might have read one Japanese novel – I believe it was “The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea” by Mishima, which I have since had the honour of translating myself. Apart from that, I simply added Japanese Studies to my English and American Studies degree.
Literature has always been my main interest and reading my greatest hobby. Having already covered America and Europe through my English and American Studies degree, I wanted to expand my perspective on world literature by studying Asian philology. Ideally, I would have liked to study Indology, but this wasn’t an option in Frankfurt. My second choice was Sinology, but I quickly realised that the atmosphere in the Japanese Studies department was more relaxed. The professorship was vacant and there were only a few students.
Initially, we had a German professor who was a substitute, and a Japanese lecturer. Japanese Studies was still very much a niche subject. The programme’s small size fostered a special relationship with the faculty.
The professorship was later filled by Professor Ekkehard May, under whom I received an excellent education in Japanese Studies. He is renowned as an expert on Basho and haiku. He also became my doctoral advisor later on. After completing my degree in Frankfurt, I went to Japan on a doctoral scholarship.
J-BIG: So you never traveled to Japan until after your studies?
Ursula Graefe: That’s right — I first went to Tokyo on a DAAD scholarship after finishing my degree, to study for a PhD. The subject of my dissertation was “The Typology of the Hero in the Modern Japanese Novel”, a topic that still fascinates me today.
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J-BIG: How did you come to translate books from Japanese?
Ursula Graefe: Professor May helped me with my first translation after I returned from Japan. Insel Verlag was looking for a translator for “The World of the Shining Prince” by Ivan Morris — an English-language cultural history of the Heian period.
At the time, I didn’t feel confident enough to translate directly from Japanese. It was only in the early to mid-1990s, when demand for Japanese literature began to grow, that I started doing so.
J-BIG: What was the reason for this increase?
Ursula Graefe: The idea of Japan as a modern society began to take precedence over the notion of it as an exotic place. I suspect the “bubble economy” and Japan’s emergence as an interesting economic partner were decisive factors. Connected to this was Japan’s role as guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1990. Around that time, Suhrkamp Verlag published the first German translations of Haruki Murakami’s works, translated by Jürgen Stalph and Annelie Ortmanns. Interest grew even further when Kenzaburō Ōe won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.
My first partial translation from Japanese was Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel “Stille Tage”, which was more of a collaborative work. Oe’s regular translator, Wolfgang Schlecht, had fallen ill and Insel Verlag needed a replacement. After some initial hesitation, my Japanese friend and colleague Kimiko Nakayama-Ziegler, who is a Germanist and Japanologist, and I decided to give it a try. We actually managed to deliver „Stille Tage“ on time.
Working with Kimiko Nakayama-Ziegler was very instructive and constructive, and beneficial for us both. Working with a native speaker offers great potential. We got on very well, always respecting each other’s language skills. I learnt a lot about Japanese culture from her insider perspective, particularly regarding certain customs. For instance, I still find it challenging today to translate colloquial dialogue from Japanese. Expressions such as “sō desu ka” and “sore wa, sore wa” can have many different meanings depending on the context. Thanks to Kimiko, I have learned to consider Japanese cultural context more carefully.
J-BIG: After you started with Kenzaburo Ōe, Murakami followed relatively quickly. Why did he, of all people, suddenly appear on the international stage?
Ursula Graefe: He had already made a name for himself in the United States. He became a bestseller in Japan in 1987 with” Noruwei no Mori” (English: “Norwegian Wood”). The American literary establishment recognised his potential immediately, and he gained international recognition via the US market.
By the late 1980s, Suhrkamp/Insel had published two of his novels in German translation: “A Wild Sheep Chase” and “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”. Nevertheless, Murakami was still relatively unknown in Germany at the time. An article in the 1990 book fair booklet was entitled “Who or what is Haruki Murakami?”
Later, two of his books were translated from American English. Then, in 2000, the literary TV show Das Literarische Quartett with Marcel Reich-Ranicki aired — and a major scandal surrounded “South of the Border, West of the Sun”. Mr. Reich-Ranicki declared Murakami a future Nobel laureate, while literary critic Sigrid Löffler dismissed the book as “literary fast food”. The debate turned personal and Mrs. Loeffler ended up leaving the show.
It only later emerged that the book had been translated from American English, prompting DuMont Verlag to immediately start looking for a translator to work directly from the Japanese original for future titles. I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time.
J-BIG: What was this first translation from Japanese for DuMont?
Ursula Graefe: “Norwegian Wood” (Japanese: “Noruwei no mori”, 1987) was Haruki Murakami’s first major bestseller in Japan. Naturally, I was very excited and made a mistake straight away. There’s a character in the book who displays obsessive behaviour, and I gave him the nickname “Sturmbandführer” instead of the correct “Sturmbannführer”. Some readers even assumed that this was intentional, but unfortunately, I must admit that it was not. The mistake was corrected in later editions. Thankfully, DuMont Verlag continued to entrust me with translating Murakami’s works. Since 2000, I have translated all but one of his new publications.
J-BIG: In the second half of the 1990s, manga began to be translated in the original Japanese reading direction for the first time, and the authenticity of Japanese culture and language was taken more seriously. Can Murakami also be seen as part of this pop-cultural movement?
Ursula Graefe: Absolutely. In my opinion, he marks a turning point in Japanese literature. He was one of the first to deviate from the academic, highly intellectual literary style that had long dominated post-war Japanese writing. Examples of this “high literature” include the works of writers such as Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, Natsume Sōseki, Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. Murakami’s writing style was revolutionary and initially shocked and upset many Japanese literary critics and scholars.
I see him as a trailblazer for many young female authors such as Sayaka Murata, Mieko Kawakami, and Asako Yūzuki — just three of the many talented writers available to read today.
J-BIG: Let’s move on to some technical questions about literary translation. How long is a typical Murakami book? And how long does it take you to translate one?
Ursula Graefe: That really varies. Murakami writes both short stories and sprawling, multi-volume novels such as “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” and “1Q84”, each of which comprises three volumes in the original Japanese. So his books range in length from 250 to 1,000 pages. His latest novel, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” (2024), is just under 700 pages long. It’s impossible for me to say how long a translation will take. Every page is different — some can be translated quite quickly, while others require a lot more thought, and sometimes time-consuming research. Then come several rounds of revision, followed by editing and proofreading. That said, Haruki Murakami’s writing tends to translate quite smoothly.
J-BIG: Does it usually take longer to translate other Japanese authors?
Ursula Graefe: I recently completed a re-translation of Yukio Mishima’s “Der Held der See” (Kein & Aber, 2024; English title of the first translation “The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea”). Translating Mishima takes me three or four times as long. This is even the case when I have access to existing German, English or French translations for reference. The recently published novel „Sympathy Tower Tokyo” by Rie Qudan was another difficult and time-consuming project.
J-BIG: So does that mean it’s hard to translate more than two books a year?
Ursula Graefe: I usually translate more than two books a year. Of course it is getting easier over time – I have learnt a lot both linguistically and technically over the years. Digital tools for looking up kanji or researching regional specifics have also improved significantly since the 1990s. All of that helps to speed up the process.
J-BIG: Is it possible to make a living as a translator?
Ursula Graefe: It depends. Supporting a family would probably be difficult. I often hear from colleagues who have had to stop translating because it’s simply not financially viable. I consider myself very lucky to be a regular translator for a best-selling author like Murakami. He has made it possible for me to secure my retirement. Without him, my situation would be very precarious.
J-BIG: What factors determine how much a translator gets paid? Expected sales figures?
Ursula Graefe: Since 2010, I have received a share of actual book sales. This has now become generally accepted practice in the industry. Previously, authors were paid a fixed page fee only. Royalties can be high if the author sells very well, as Murakami does. For translations with small print runs, however, it’s a different story. Translating the works of Yukio Mishima is, above all, a labour of love. Like many of my colleagues, I give workshops – at the Nippon Connection film festival again this year – and do readings, most recently at the Donaueschingen municipal library to celebrate a town twinning anniversary. So it’s a bit of a patchwork economy.
J-BIG: So you could say that you were in the right place at the right time with the right training, just as Japan was emerging from the bubble economy. And then you were lucky enough to work with Japan’s most successful author.
Ursula Graefe: That’s right. These royalty models didn’t exist when I started; they only came about thanks to the translators’ association. The Association of German-Speaking Translators (VdÜ) has achieved a great deal. It represents our interests in public and with publishers. This is not the case in all countries. Norway is a similarly positive example, I think. In Germany, there are now standardised contracts and royalty models that many publishers adhere to. The average fee for a standard page (30 lines of 60 characters) is between 18 and 25 euros, depending on the language and level of difficulty. Japanese is at the higher end of that range.
Royalty might look like this: 0.5% for the first 1,000 copies, and 1% for each subsequent copy. Paperback royalties are even lower. Despite the great economic potential, the situation of manga translators is particularly precarious. A recent internal survey found that 57 per cent said they could not see themselves continuing under the current conditions long term. So there’s still a lot to be done. However, compared to when I started, things have improved considerably — and for that, I’m very grateful to the VdÜ.
J-BIG: Many Japanese studies students want to become literary translators. What advice would you give them?
Ursula Graefe: In the long term, machine translation will inevitably transform our profession. But we must not forget that, although artificial intelligence can generate blocks of text and images based on large datasets, it does not have any innate emotional or factual understanding of the output. Creative translations can be produced by humans only. Machine translation is incapable of accurately translating complex literary texts. At a recent workshop, I presented three versions of a passage from Yukio Mishima’s “Der Held der See” to participants. Two were AI-generated. They identified the human version within minutes.
J-BIG: How do you view the situation for translators at the moment?
Ursula Graefe: Compared to the past, things have improved, thanks to the outstanding commitment of our colleagues at VdÜ. The association has played a key role in improving the legal and financial situation for us translators. That said, I still tell newcomers that literary translation remains, above all, a labor of love.
J-BIG: What are your plans for the future? And are there any books in particular that you are hoping to translate?
Ursula Graefe: My hope is to continue working in my profession for as long as possible, learning and translating the works of interesting authors. This includes older writers whose work is still largely unavailable in German, such as Sawako Ariyoshi. She was a bestselling and remarkably prolific author who died in 1984. She wrote a two-volume, thousand-page novel about Izumo no Okuni, considered the founder of Kabuki theatre. Many people are familiar with the memorial dedicated to her at Kamogawa in Kyoto. I would also love to translate Mishima’s science fiction novel “Utsukushii hoshi” (“Beautiful Star”), in which each family member originates from a different planet. I would also be thrilled to work on something by Hiromi Kawakami, whose novel “Der Himmel ist blau, die Erde ist weiß” (engl. “Strange Weather in Tokyo”) found great success in Germany.
J-BIG: Which of your translations can we look forward to next?
Ursula Graefe: In August 2025, Sayaka Murata’s novel “Schwindende Welt” (engl. “Vanishing World”) will be published by Aufbau Verlage. In November 2025, “Die Spatzenmorde von Onikobe” (engl. “The Little Sparrow Murders”), the fifth volume in Seishi Yokomizo’s crime series which I thoroughly enjoy translating, will be released. In 2026, a new novel by Asako Yūzuki, who enjoyed some success with “Butter”, will be published. A definite title has not yet been finalised.
