My great-grandfather was born to a peasant family in Spain. At a young age, he spent some time training to become a priest, and although he ultimately chose another path, he nevertheless retained a great love for language: Latin, Greek, and Spanish, then Sanskrit, Quechua, Turkish, Indostani. After long years of military service, research, and… Read More The Gospel as the Great Passage, I: On Talking Books
My upbringing was, in certain respects, relatively sheltered. Of relevance for this post, I hardly ever heard anyone use profanity in real life. It might occasionally show up in a TV show or movie, but we mostly avoided works with such language, and in any case, those were fictional. Indeed, the fact that I practically… Read More Profanity, Euphemisms, and an Archdemon’s Undesirable Friend
Relatively few fictional settings feature Christianity. There are a variety of reasons for this—some good and some…not. Even in the isekai stories of C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy), where the God of the Bible is recognized in other worlds, the inhabitants of those other worlds don’t actually practice “Christianity”… Read More The Curious Incident of the Christianity in the Fictional Setting
Today we’re joined by Kaze as we continue a final series of Throwback Thursday posts to run through the end of 2020 and celebrating our 10th anniversary! Enjoy his temporary return to “Lost in Translation,” and continue to stay tuned as other former and current writers revisit their own past columns in the coming weeks.… Read More Lost in Translation: Authorial Intent and Localization
As Christians, we know that the Bible should be like honey to our lips, its words sweet and powerful, compelling us to seek God and follow him. If you’re like me, there have been times in your life when the Bible did indeed feel this way, where you were swept away by its words, captivated… Read More When Manga Brings the Bible Alive
Have you ever wondered or looked into the history of books and how they are made? For the protagonist of Ascendance of a Bookworm, our next Light Novel Club title, that sort of information turned from fun trivia to a matter of grave importance. As a total bookworm, she spent her days practically buried in… Read More Light Novel Kindling: The Ascendance of Books
The backstory of Uotani Arisa, friend of Fruits Basket protagonist Honda Tohru, is a genderswapped retelling of Jesus’ parable of the “prodigal” son found in Luke 15. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it was fun to say, and it got your attention, didn’t it? And there really is some great thematic resonance… Read More The Prodigal Uo-chan