Student's AI Tool Translates Murakami Novel in Four Hours for $2

A 21-year-old literature undergraduate in China has demonstrated that AI can translate a full-length literary novel with surprising fidelity in just four hours — and for less than $2.

The student, using the pseudonym Ping Ming, developed a tool called Wenyi that translated Haruki Murakami's latest novel, "The Tale of KAHO," from Japanese to Mandarin Chinese within hours of its July 3 release in Tokyo. The unlicensed translation quickly circulated on Chinese social media platforms and file-sharing sites, reaching readers who would typically wait over a year for an official translation.

Ping, a literature major at Nanjing Normal University, built Wenyi using the Chinese AI model DeepSeek. The system divides books into chunks of fewer than 2,000 words, translates each section while maintaining six-paragraph overlaps for continuity, and automatically extracts proper nouns and key terms to ensure consistency. After initial translation, the program reviews the entire text chunk by chunk to identify problems. The entire process cost just 13 yuan ($1.90) in DeepSeek tokens.

Why it matters

This development arrives at a critical moment for publishing houses weighing AI adoption against human expertise. While the technology can dramatically reduce both translation time and cost — professional translators typically need six months to complete a 350-page book and earn 100 to 120 yuan per 1,000 characters — the legal and creative implications remain unresolved. Copyright holders face potential revenue loss from unlicensed translations, while the publishing industry must decide whether speed and cost savings outweigh the interpretive artistry human translators bring to literary works.

Mixed reception from professionals

Readers on Chinese platforms praised the translation quality. One highly-liked review on Douban asked, "If AI can already do this much, what's the point of having human translators?"

However, professional translators and editors expressed reservations. Lin Shaohua, who translated Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" and "Norwegian Wood," told China Newsweek that while Wenyi's output was grammatically coherent, it failed to capture the author's true voice. "AI is still not quite capable of conveying subtle nuances of language and stylistic nuances," he said.

Nanshan Youlu, a part-time translator who worked on a competing manual translation, acknowledged Wenyi achieved near-perfect fidelity to the source text but noted the result felt "fragmented" and lacked contextual harmony. He views translation as a creative continuation rather than mechanical reproduction.

Legal and ethical concerns

Zhang Jie, an intellectual property attorney at Shanghai-based Zhihe Partners, confirmed that both Ping and other unlicensed translators risk copyright infringement accusations regardless of whether they profited financially. China's Copyright Law protects overseas authors' rights under international treaties, and the nonprofit nature of the translations doesn't exempt them from liability.

Publishing industry insiders remain cautious about wholesale AI adoption. Liu Chengxu, an editor at Guangdong People's Publishing House, said he would consider AI for straightforward texts but prefers human translators for complex works. Puzhao, an editor at Shanghai Translation Publishing House, opposes AI translation on ethical grounds, arguing it deprives humans of job opportunities and reduces translation to mechanical word transfer rather than creative interpretation.

Ping taught himself Python programming two years ago and trained Wenyi using English-language literature by Edgar Allan Poe and Ian McEwan. He developed the tool partly from frustration with existing machine translation quality and his desire to read Murakami's books immediately upon release.

These details were first reported by Sixth Tone.