The Swordless Samurai (Indonesian Version)

Still, regarding my Japanese Boss, I tried to read more books about the Japanese and luckily (or unluckily? Have no idea) I found a book in Gramedia (biggest bookstore chain in Indonesia) called Swordless Samurai.  It was written by Masao Kitami and edited by Tim Clark.  As you can read all over the internet, the book was about leadership advices taken from Toyotomi Hideyoshi.  Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a peasant who becomes the supreme leader of Japan in 16 century. You can see the official site here.

But this entry won’t be about the content of The Swordless Samurai, but about the Indonesia version of this book.  One word for it: awful.  Let me remind you, it is not about the content of the book.  Undoubtedly, the story about Hideyoshi was...what would you call it? Inspiring and amazing, but I won’t recommend the Indonesian version of this book. Because the book sounds like kids diary, a little scrapbook mumbling about ‘how good I am’.  It was supposed to be motivational, but end up like a messed up diary of an arrogant man. So, uh oh.  If you have trouble reading English (like me) but still want to know about Toyotomi Hideyoshi, please read Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa.  Both English and Indonesian versions of Taiko are good.

I know that translating isn’t an easy task because there are some problems stem from ambiguity, structural and lexical differences, idioms, and in my opinion, there are just some words that cannot be translated appropriately whatsoever.  Furthermore, words heavily depend on the context.  So, a book translator should understand the whole story. But despite of those difficulties, isn’t a book should be reviewed or edited or whatever before being published?  It was a shame that the magic of a marvellous book like Swordless Samurai lost in translation.

So, my recommendation...if you want to read the Indonesian version and have rather long spare time, go read Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa (it’s thick), but if you mainly interested in the leadership advices of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, please do me a favour...read the English or Japanese version of The Swordless Samurai.

Cheers,

Nidya Astrini