Geraldine Millais Harcourt (25 May 1952 – 21 June 2019) was a New Zealand translator of modern Japanese literature.

Early life and education

Harcourt was born in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

on 25 May 1952. She graduated from the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

, and first went to Japan in 1973.

Career

Harcourt developed a close working relationship with Japanese fiction writer

Yūko Tsushima Satoko Tsushima (30 March 1947 – 18 February 2016), known by her pen name Yūko Tsushima (津島佑子 ''Tsushima Yūko''), was a Japanese fiction writer, essayist and critic. Tsushima won many of Japan's top literary prizes in her career, i ...

, and translated many of her works into English. These include: * Yūko Tsushima, ''Child of Fortune'' (1978) * Yūko Tsushima. ''Territory of Light'' (1979) * Yūko Tsushima, ''Woman Running in the Mountains'' (1980) * Yūko Tsushima, ''The Shooting Gallery & Other Stories'' (1973–1984) * Yūko Tsushima, ''Of Dogs and Walls'' (2018) Works by other Japanese authors translated into English by Harcourt include: * Shizuko Gō, ''

Requiem A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...

'' (1985) *

Hirotada Ototake (born April 6, 1976) is a Japanese sports writer from Tokyo, Japan. Born without arms and legs due to a genetic disorder called tetra-amelia syndrome, Ototake is most notable for his 1998 memoir (). Within a year of publication, the book became ...

, ''No One's Perfect'' (1998) * Yūko Tanaka, ''The Power of the Weave: The Hidden Meanings of Cloth'' (2013) * Takeshi Nakagawa, ''The Japanese House in Space, Memory, and Language'' (2006)

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 Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

on 21 June 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harcourt, Geraldine 1952 births 2019 deaths 21st-century New Zealand translators Japanese–English translators New Zealand expatriates in Japan University of Auckland alumni 20th-century translators 21st-century translators People from Auckland Geraldine