Kyoko Iriye Selden


Kyoko Iriye Selden was a Japanese scholar of Japanese language and literature and a translator.

Biography

Kyoko Iriye was born in Tokyo. Her father was a journalist reporting from Paris and Shanghai, and her mother was an English teacher. She attended Seikei High School, and wrote a thesis on Wordsworth at the University of Tokyo, before studying English Literature on a Fulbright Scholarship at Yale University. She taught at Cornell University for twenty-five years, and was a literary translator. She was married to Mark Selden, with whom she had three children and four grandchildren.

The Kyoko Iriye Selden Memorial Translation Prize

Also known as the Kyoko Selden Translation Prize, it was awarded eight times between 2014 and 2022, with contributions from colleagues and friends, to honor Kyoko Iriye Selden's scholarly legacy. The prize was awarded to translations that ware at the unpublished stage, to support and encourage translation and publication of Japanese language materials across a broad range. In 2022, the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University announced that the prize would be awarded for the last time.
2022 Winners
  • Record of a Journey that Was More than Mere Diversion” by Hayashi Kakuryō - translated by Matthew Fraleigh
  • Faithful Birds of Sorrow by Santō Kyōden - translated by Yi Deng Honorable Mention: Letters from Iwaki, 2012-2014, by Yoshida Hiromi - translated by Shi-Lin Loh
2021 Winners
  • Excerpts from Shōkenkō 蕉堅稿: The Selected Poems of Zekkai Chūshin 絶海中津, by Zekkai Chūshin - translated by Paul Atkins
  • "A Dosimeter on the Narrow Road to Oku", by Durian Sukegawa - translated by Alison Watts
2020 Competition cancelled due to COVID-19
2019 Winner
  • "The Maiden's Betrayal", Akiko Akazome - translated by Michelle Kyoko Crowson
2018 Winners
2017 Winners
  • "Tale of the Enchanted Sword", by Izumi Kyōka - translated by Nina Cornyetz
  • "The Torrent", by Taiwanese writer Wang Changxiong - translated by Erin Brightwell
2016 Winner
2015 Winner
  • "Muddy River", by Miyamoto Teru - translated by Andrew Murakami-Smith
2014 Winners
  • "Sagoromo", by Rokujo no Saiin Senji - translated by David Pearsall Dutcher
  • "So Happy to See Cherry Blossoms", by Madoka Mayuzumi - translated by Hiroaki Sato and Nancy Sato

Selected publications

Translations into English of Fiction, History, Biography, Early Childhood Education, and Art