“You’ll Need to Bring a Gift”: Baumkuchen Cake and the Wild World of International Publishing
The good news came out of the blue.
I opened my email to learn that Penguin Random House had acquired the rights to my translation, Story of a Single Woman, and were releasing it on April 29, 2025. This was one of my early translations of Uno Chiyo’s fiction and contemplating its relaunch brought back a rush of memories.
How could I forget my first meeting with the legendary publisher Peter Owen?
“You’ll need to bring a gift,” I told him on the phone.
“Why?” he fired back.
“It’s the custom,” I said. “It would be rude to show up empty handed.”
I had not yet met Peter Owen (1927-2016), the maverick British publisher renowned for his ability to uncover international writers yet unrecognized in English. He had been the one to introduce Mishima Yukio to English readers when he published Meredith Weatherby’s stunning translation of Confessions of a Mask in 1960. By the late 1970s Peter was working with Endō Shūsaku. I knew Endō’s translator, Van Gessel, who briefly taught at Columbia University and quickly became the favorite professor among my cohort of graduate students. Peter was now setting his sights on acquiring translation rights to Uno Chiyo’s works.
Imagine my delight, then, when I received a letter from the great publisher himself. Would I soon be joining the league of translators that included Van?
12.10.90
Dr. Rebecca Copeland
International Christian University
Canada House 233
3-10-2 Osawa, Mitaka-shi
Tokyo 181, Japan
Dear Dr. Copeland
Bill Hamilton of the University of Hawaii Press, has given me your address and fax.
I am going to be in Japan from November 2nd until November 13th, and would very much like to meet you to discuss your book as we are Uno Chiyo’s publishers and are handling all the foreign rights. I am terribly keen to see her and I have asked my author Shusaku Endo to make an appointment and I will need an interpreter – I believe you know her. Endo would probably give me an interpreter but if you could come along it would help enormously, also with a view to translating more Uno Chiyo books. We could then discuss the books and see which ones we want to buy – we certainly want to go on with this outstanding writer.
I am staying on the Fairmont Hotel in Tokyo and will be there late Friday, November 2nd. Could you perhaps telephone me, or I will telephone you – in the morning, quite early will do, of the 3rd November, when I will know whether Endo has made an appointment, if not, could you make one? The best time for me would be late afternoon, as my appointments at the moment are all channelled to the morning and afternoon, say around 5.00 pm or 5.30 pm, any day would be fine.
I would be very grateful for your help, which will be invaluable.
Sincerely
PETER OWEN
PETER OWEN LTD
Ever on the hunt for a new voice, Peter had stumbled upon Phyllis Birnbaum’s 1989 translation of Uno Chiyo’s Confessions of Love (Irozange, 1935). Intrigued, he followed up with William Hamilton, the director of the University of Hawai’i Press, which published the translation. Since I was then in negotiations with the Press to publish my translations of three of Uno’s stories, along with a substantial introduction (a volume that would eventually become The Sound of the Wind: The Life and Works of Uno Chiyo, 1992), Bill suggested that Peter follow up with me.
I could hardly contain my excitement:
October 22, 1990
Mr. Peter Owen
Peter Owen Ltd: Publishers
73 Kenway Road
London SW5 ORE
Dear Mr. Owen:
Thank you very much for your letter of 12 October. I should be very honored to meet you while you are visiting Tokyo and certainly hope to be of assistance if possible. I will of course be most eager to accompany you to your interview with Uno Chiyo and will gladly serve as your interpreter. However, if you wish to discuss business-related matters in fine detail, you would probably be better served by the interpreter Endo Shusaku provides. The sphere of my linguistic ability is mostly limited to vague discussions of literature, weather and health.
In fact, Peter did not take my advice about the interpreter. When I met him in early November, I was to discover that he was extremely miserly, taking any opportunity possible to cut costs—even while staying in one of Tokyo’s more posh hotels.
I can’t remember what day we met or where. I imagine we met near the subway stop at Omote Sandō, there among the fashionable stores that lined the street—Dior, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. After a quick greeting, we began our journey to Uno Chiyo’s apartment in Minami Aoyama San-Chōme on foot. Far cheaper to walk than take a taxi.
I do remember being dismayed by Peter’s appearance. His face was grizzled—had he forgotten to pack a razor?—his jacket rumpled. I suspect his shirt would have been equally wrinkled had it not been stretched so tightly across his impressively round belly. His tie, which carried the remainder of his breakfast, was too short, exposing a missing button on his shirt below.
This was the illustrious publisher? The discoverer of unknown talent?
It wasn’t his appearance that nettled me, though, it was his attitude.
“Did you bring a gift?” I asked, noticing he carried nothing.
“No.” he answered testily.
“Then let’s stop here and buy a cake.” I pushed the door open to a small shop that sold Baumkuchen goods. Even though we selected the smallest one they had, Peter still grumbled as the shopkeeper wrapped the gift.
“She should be paying me!” he sniffed as he begrudgingly handed the clerk the money. (I had stubbornly refused to open my wallet when I translated the amount for Peter.) “I’m the one doing her a favor,” he added
I can’t remember if I recited the rules of etiquette to him again or if I took another look at his soiled tie and thought the better of it. I did begin to feel a knot of dread in the pit of my stomach, wondering what kind of trouble I may be stirring up.
My anxiety loomed larger the closer we drew to Uno’s apartment.
“So, who are we meeting?” Peter asked.
We already knew that Uno Chiyo would not be joining us. At 93 her health was occasionally precarious, and I was aware that for some time she had been suffering from gikkuri-goshi, acute lower back pain.
“As I understand it, Ms. Fujie will be responsible for the negotiations.”
“Such a pity. I was hoping the meet the grand dame herself. Then again, I imagine she’s not as beautiful as she once was. Who’s this Fujie?”
“She’s her secretary and assistant. They live together.”
I probably shouldn’t have added the last part. Peter nearly stopped in his tracks and turned to me asking, “Oh, are they dykey?”
“What?”
At first, I hadn’t quite caught what he had said. Perhaps it was his accent but more likely it was because I couldn’t associate Uno in an intimate relationship with her secretary. More than a business associate, Fujie was like a daughter to Uno. Then I understood. After Confessions of Love, Peter had pegged Uno as the “next Anais Nin” or the “Japanese Colette.” He wanted there to be salacious sex. And maybe there had been at one time in Uno’s past, but my god, the woman was 93 with chronic lower back pain.
“No, not at all.” I could hardly conceal my disgust—not with what Peter had said so much as the way he had said it. “Both Fujie and her husband, who is a photographer, live with Uno and help her. They’re her family.”
Should I turn around right now? Was this translation worth it?
Uno Chiyo was my author. I had worked hard to cultivate a relationship with her, and I felt responsible for her trust. I did not want to insult her by introducing a publisher to her who would brashly push through with business negotiations at best and insult her at worst.
I needn’t have worried, though. When we reached her apartment, I discovered that Fujie Atsuko, like the steadfast assistant and loyal guard she was, had engaged the services of Akiko Kurita, Managing Director of Japan Foreign-Rights Centre (JFC) and not one to suffer fools lightly. No one would pull the wool over the eyes of those two women. They were prepared for Mr. Peter Owen.
More so than I had been. My adventures with Peter Owen were only just beginning.
In the end we managed to have a cordial and mutually rewarding business relationship. It is thanks to Peter, after all, that I am now celebrating the re-release of my translation of Uno Chiyo’s The Story of a Single Woman.
In the posts to follow, I will share some of the stories behind the Story. Stay tuned!
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