Friends of Finnegans Web

Friends of Finnegans Web

finneganswake.net

日本語｜English

Background
Meet the Team
Friend Tier
Patron Tier

Background

James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is commonly thought to be an impossible book. Yet dozens of reading groups exist around the world – including at least two in Japan – where members of the public come together and read this supposedly “unreadable” book in vibrant communal settings.

At Finnegans Web, our main goal is to make Finnegans Wake accessible to the Japanese public. To this end, our meticulously researched and expert-vetted Notes and New Translation are provided to the public free of charge under a creative commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

We are hugely grateful to all of our collaborators and supporters for making Finnegans Web possible. With no eligible source of public funding, we rely exclusively on the generosity of private individuals and organisations to continue our work.

For more on our activities, see our latest Activity Report.

Meet the Team

Finnegans Web is run by two dedicated Joyceans.

Kenji Hayakawa / 早川健治

Kenji is a translator and interpreter based in Dublin, Ireland. He has translated a wide range of material including books by Yoko Tawada, Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Dipesh Chakrabarty and others. He is the founder and host of Reading Finnegans Wake [フィネガンズ・ウェイクを読む], a Japanese-language weekly livestream programme endorsed by the Embassy of Ireland in Japan, the James Joyce Centre and the Blooms & Barnacles Podcast.

Yuta Imazeki / 今関裕太

Yuta is a scholar of Irish literature and media studies based in Japan and is currently Associate Professor of English literature at Nagoya University. His recent contributions to book-length publications include Reading Lacan’s Sinthome: Joyce, the Knot, Mental Illness [詳解　ラカン「サントーム」—ジョイス・結び目・精神病] (Fukumura Shuppan, 2025), Flann O’Brien and the Nonhuman: Environments, Animals, Machines (Cork University Press, 2024) and The Adventurers of Media Studies [メディア論の冒険者たち] (University of Tokyo Press, 2023). Yuta earned his PhD in Literature at the University of Tokyo in 2025.

Friend Tier — €250

Friends of Finnegans Web understand the value of promoting Finnegans Wake in Japan and the literary possibilities our work opens up for Japanese readers and writers.

By becoming a Friend, you become part of a small but dedicated international community of Wakeans. We gratefully acknowledge your trust and support by providing the following rewards package.

  • Your name will appear in the Credits section of the New Translation and Note pages of the next Chapter as well as in the next installment of our booklet series Translation in Progress of Finnegans Wake
  • Your name will be included in the Credits section of any written material we prepare for public events and other public-facing activities
  • One copy of the next Chapter of our Translation in Progress of Finnegans Wake booklet (full colour print, artwork by Carol Wade with a translator’s note and an expert introduction), signed by the translator as well as the other team members of Finnegans Web

Moreover, we might occasionally contact you by email for additional Friends-exclusive rewards and updates. This will be no more frequent than once a month and you will have the option to opt out at any time.

Become a Friend
Patron Tier — €1,000

Patrons of Finnegans Web understand the amount of work and resources that go into a project like Finnegans Web and are willing to become a core stakeholder.

Accurately translating Finnegans Wake into Japanese, annotating the text in detail and presenting it in an accessible form to the public at large comprise a monumental undertaking. As a core stakeholder in that journey, we recognise our Patrons by offering the following rewards package.

  • Leave a lasting mark on the New Translation
  • Your name and short profile description (c. 100 words) will appear in the Credits section of the New Translation and Note pages of the next Chapter as well as in the next installment of our booklet series Translation in Progress of Finnegans Wake
  • We will mention your name at the start of in-person and online public events related to Finnegans Web
  • Your name will be included in the Credits section of any written material we prepare for public events and other public-facing activities
  • One copy of the next Chapter of our Translation in Progress of Finnegans Wake booklet (full colour print, artwork by Carol Wade with a translator’s note and an expert introduction), signed by the translator as well as the other team members of Finnegans Web

Moreover, we might occasionally contact you by email for additional Patrons-exclusive rewards and updates. This will be no more frequent than once a month and you will have the option to opt out at any time.

We would like to ensure that prospective Patrons are fully informed about what this tier entails. If you are interested in becoming a Patron, please contact us from our Patron contact form.