"A truly great translator can do a translation that is true to the spirit of the Japanese, but lets an American or Chinese or French audience enjoy that text as though it was written for them."

There was something centipedal / in his violet stare / that made her skin itch.

The thing in the slab leaning up against the back of the glass case wrenched her heart. A fossil bird, rising with every ounce of its strength from the trap of the stone that grasped it. Its beak pointed towards the sky, wide open in an arrested scream—for help? Its wings were held out from its body like a cloak.