Takashi Ogawa

Born as Yoshio Kobayashi, in Tokyo in 1951, a natural child of 60's counterculture, which explains how I believe in love and human ties. That's also why I became a translator, a human tie between foreign writers and Japanese readers, between fictional world and ideas, and real people. I'd like to meet people and have attended a dozen Worldcons. Translation to me is music, or love, a very heartfelt thing that cannot be done fully by machines nor logic. My works in more than a quarter century include Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling, Glimpses by Lewis Shiner, Blood Music by Greg Bear, Blood Sport by Robert F. Jones, and the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. I love rock music and the idea of forming a band of translators was modeled on the Family Dog, a hippie group of music and dance promoters in San Francisco in the 60's, who promoted a lot of good bands in their concerts. After the death of hippies, I abandoned the ideas of communal groups but still loved the idea of an SF community. I also loved the basic ideas behind SF, that welcomed changes. But after reading Singularity's Ring by Paul Melko and seeing the current reformed Paul Kantner's Jefferson Starship show last year persuaded me that the group thing was not passe, it still worked, and could be accepted by newer generations. So I've formed this band of translators. Thank a lot to both Pauls.

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I also teach translation in Tokyo and Sapporo. The UNI college in Tokyo has raised a bunch of good translators, from which most of the following members come.