'My Darling' manga goes bilingual
Tony Laszlo makes it no secret that, when the first volume of his manga artist wife's work about their life together was printed in 2002, he did not read it thoroughly, page by page.
However, he finally had to examine each and every page of the first volume of the hugely popular manga, Daarin wa Gaikokujin (My Darling is a Foreigner) by Saori Oguri, when he took on the job of turning the work into a bilingual manga, with an English translation placed beside each and every line of dialogue.
"When my wife was making this book, I was busy with other work. Plus, I decided not to read the book before she published it," Laszlo said.
After finally reading the book, he made some new discoveries about his wife, such as her cutesy childhood nickname that she had tried to keep a secret from her husband.
Laszlo, an American of Hungarian and Italian descent, came to Japan in 1985. An avid student of languages and linguistics, the multilingual writer runs a nongovernmental organization called Issho Kikaku, the aim of which is to study issues of human diversity, language and culture, and these days he makes frequent appearances on TV, often as a commentator on the Japanese or English language. (207 words)
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