Activity Report 2025
June 16th 2025 – March 15th 2026
finneganswake.net
日本語｜English
Finnegans Notes
New Japanese Translation
Events
Publications
Livestream Programme
Friends of Finnegans Web
Finnegans Web is a voluntary organisation co-run by translator Kenji Hayakawa and scholar Yuta Imazeki. We produce and provide the following resources for Japanese readers of Finnegans Wake.
- Finnegans Notes: Detailed chapter-by-chapter annotations to the source text
- New Japanese Translation: An accurate and high-quality new Japanese translation
Both the Notes and the New Translation are presented in a mobile-friendly user interface. Both are made publicly available online under a creative commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
In addition to these two core activities, we have held numerous events (both in-person and online, Ireland and Japan) to promote international literary exchange in general and Finnegans Wake in particular. We are also working on a serial publication project where our new translation is laid out side-by-side with paintings from the Art of the Wake series by artist Carol Wade and printed in full colour on thick matte paper.
Finally, as a sister project to Finnegans Web, we have been running the Reading Finnegans Wake livestream programme since October 2022. As of March 2026, we have run over 140 reading sessions covering Book I, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 (pp.3–195) as well as over 10 special interviews with distinguished guests (details below).
All the notes, translations and reports are 100% human-written. Except for a few snippets of code (JavaScript and CSS), we never use AI to produce what you see on this website.
We published a total of 3,130 individual Japanese-language annotations covering Book I, Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Each note was written by either Kenji or Yuta and then further vetted by the other. The notes explain the various allusions and multilingual puns, provide links to primary sources (including the direct sources Joyce himself used) and occasionally also elaborate in depth on key motifs.
I.2 – Finnegans Notes
I.3 – Finnegans Notes
I.4 – Finnegans Notes
We translated Book I, Chapter 2 into Japanese and published it under a creative commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This is the first time that a freely accessible Japanese translation of Finnegans Wake has ever been published.
Backed by a comprehensive annotation of over 700 notes and spending over 300 hours of intensive work to translate just 18 pages of text, our new translation is arguably the most accurate and dynamic translation of Finnegans Wake in Japanese to date.
Our Japanese prose recreates the key features which make Finnegans Wake the work that it is. These consist of proper names and references, multilingualism, slang and dialect terms, word order and syntax, gradations of obscurity, rhyme and alliteration, humour, singability, and HCE/ALP phrases (e.g. ‘enos chalked halltraps’, ‘a lady pack’).
Our faithful and comprehensive rendition of Joyce’s source text represents a milestone in Japanese-language literary translation. We believe that a faithful translation of the Wake serves as a portal to the rich complexity of the culture and history of Ireland while also imbuing the Japanese language with a renewed sense of openness and possibility.
I.2 – New Japanese Translation
EventsWatching Finnegans Wake: An Evening with Adam Seelig
October 31st, 2025 | agréable*musée | Tokyo
Clips from One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake film project were screened in Tokyo. After each screening, director Adam Seelig, who came to the event all the way from Canada, discussed the clip with Yuta, with scholar Kaori Hirashige acting as interpreter. Excerpts from our New Translation of Finnegans Wake which correspond to the screened clips were also performed by Yuta.
Making Finnegans Wake Accessible: The Finnegans Web Project
January 15th, 2026 | The James Joyce Centre | Dublin
The inner workings of Finnegans Web were presented by Kenji to a fully booked-out room at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin. Questions from the audience during the Q&A segment focussed overwhelmingly on the New Translation project.
Finnegans Quiz: Live Version in Tokyo
February 4th, 2026 | Honya Book & Beer | Tokyo
A Wake-inspired literary pub-quiz event was hosted by Kenji and Yuta at the appropriately chosen venue of Honya [Bookshop] Book & Beer in Tokyo. Each member of the audience was given an answer sheet for ten questions which covered various facets of Irish history and culture as well as the intriguing details behind Joyce’s writing of Finnegans Wake. Topics discussed include beer and wine, Harriet Shaw Weaver’s patronage of Joyce, Humpty Dumpty, the story of Sir Tristram and Iseult, the Book of Kells, the Anglo-Norman (or Anglo-Welsh) invasion of 1169, the life and times of Granuaile, the War of Independence and the history of the Japanese translation of Finnegans Wake.
PublicationsWe published a booklet titled Translation in Progress of Finnegans Wake, covering Book I, Chapter 2 and featuring the paintings from the Art of the Wake project by Carol Wade. Wade’s paintings were laid out side-by-side with our new Japanese translation of the corresponding page. The booklet is printed in full colour on matte paper and includes a short translator’s note as well as a plot summary. A small-batch limited edition was sold at the Finnegans Quiz event in Tokyo. The standard version is available for purchase for those based in Japan.
Reading Finnegans Wake [フィネガンズ・ウェイクを読む] is a weekly educational livestream programme for Japanese readers of Finnegans Wake. Membership for this programme is based on a monthly subscription (¥1,500 ≈ €8 per month). In addition to the weekly livestream sessions, members have access to all past session recordings as well as special interview episodes, where recent guests include writer Yoko Tawada, artist Carol Wade, translator and Joyce scholar Sun-Chieh Liang among many others.
Each week, the programme presents a detailed reading of one to two pages of Finnegans Wake in Japanese. As of March 2026, we have run over 140 reading sessions covering Book I, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 (pp.3-195).
The livestream programme is a sister project and is not strictly a part of Finnegans Web. However, the programme provides an important basis for the work we do at Finnegans Web by laying the groundwork for the Notes as well as being a platform and community for Wake readers in Japan.
Friends of Finnegans WebWith no eligible source of public funding, the sustainability of our work relies exclusively on the generosity of private individuals and organisations. If you would like to see us continue our work, consider becoming a Friend of Finnegans Web.