The God Of The Word (KANATA 5)

Book 5 of Strangers Press' chapbook series, KANATA.

“Since you asked: I am the great god Hitokotonushi of Kazuraki, known as Kotosaka no Kami, the WordRender, he who can render anything, be it felicitous or ill-omened, with but a single word. Nice to meet you.”

The God of the Word is a witty and wry retelling of the Kojiki (‘Record of Ancient Matters’), completed in 712 CE, which is considered the oldest extant Japanese text. It is a myth-history documenting (read: legitimising) the divine lineage of the emperors of the Yamato court, including the Wakatakeru no Mikoto of our text (supposedly the real historical figure the rest of the 14 confabulations were arranged to legitimise). This lively and hilarious translation is guaranteed to make you smile, while also gesturing towards the serious and relevant consideration of who gets to tell the tall tales on which we build our own narratives.

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KANATA, from かなた, translates as ‘far out’ or ‘beyond’, but also hints at a kind of nebulous liminality; we feel it holds in entertaining constellation something of the concerns of each of the stories selected as well as expressing something compelling about the act of reading and the art of translating literature from other languages and cultures.