On the Japanese Translation of Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia: キリギリスの哲学―ゲームプレイと理想の人生 (Romanization: kirigirisu no tetsugaku―gēmupurei to risō no jinsei. Lit.: The Philosophy of the Grasshopper: Game-playing and the ideal life)

Abstract

The Japanese translation of Bernard Suits's The Grasshopper was published in 2015. We report in this article the background of the translation, the way our project was operated, some notable difficulties we had and the impact that our translation has had so far. The description of the difficulties with translation touches upon how we interpreted the terms ‘lusory’ and ‘prelusory’. This article also includes an appendix describing the history of how the word ‘grasshopper’ has been translated into Japanese.