This is one of several volumes of translations of Burns’s poems into Japanese in the Mitchell Library. Burns has never gone down well in Japan due to his work being ‘lost in translation’. A lot of his powerful images fall flat when rendered into Japanese, for example Fair fa’your honest sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the pudding race has been translated as Good luck to your honest friendly face, Great King of the sausages.
The translations give readers a very accurate impression of what Burns said, but with little impression of his poetic skill.
Toshio Namba was not the only person to translate Burns’s poems into Japanese but he devoted most of his academic career to producing several volumes of translations as well as a life of the poet.