Originally this was to be a conversation between Asako Yuzuki (author of "Butter") and Sayaka Murata, which I think would have been a fascinating conversation as they both have such interesting perspectives on being a woman and an outsider in Japanese society, and they are also friends. Unfortunately Sayaka had to pull out of the festival, and so this became a solo event, with Junko Hirabayashi as the MC.

The event was almost entirely in Japanese, with an automated translation supplied via a screen at the venue and also on our phones. Although good in theory, the translations were riddled with errors ("the translation said you DID breastfeed while drinking," one person told her in the Q&A section, as she laughed and said "no, no!") and very slow. Yuzuki spoke at what seemed like a fairly normal pace but it rapidly became evident the translations were way behind. After the event wrapped up, I kept my phone screen open and read the remaining translations for the next 20 minutes - that's how far behind it was by the end. So far from a perfect solution.

Despite the guesswork and delays involved in reading the translations, I thought it was a really interesting session. Please take these notes with a grain of salt, due to the aforementioned translation issues:

( notes )