Geraldine Harcourt

Geraldine Millais Harcourt was a New Zealand translator of modern Japanese literature.

Early life and education

Harcourt was born in Auckland on 25 May 1952. She graduated from the University of Auckland, and first went to Japan in 1973.

Career

Harcourt developed a close working relationship with Japanese fiction writer Yūko Tsushima, and translated many of her works into English. These include:

Yūko Tsushima, Child of Fortune
Yūko Tsushima, Territory of Light
Yūko Tsushima, Woman Running in the Mountains
Yūko Tsushima, The Shooting Gallery & Other Stories
Yūko Tsushima, Of Dogs and Walls

Works by other Japanese authors translated into English by Harcourt include:

Shizuko Gō, Requiem
Hirotada Ototake, No One's Perfect
Yūko Tanaka, The Power of the Weave: The Hidden Meanings of Cloth
Takeshi Nakagawa, ''The Japanese House in Space, Memory, and Language''

Awards

In 1990, Harcourt was awarded the Wheatland Translation Prize. She won the 2018–2019 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize for her translation of Territory of Light, published by Penguin in 2017.

Death

Harcourt died in Wellington on 21 June 2019.