Japan

Ohsaki Sayaka 

Ohsaki Sayaka (1982-) was featured in the journal Yuriika (Eureka) as one of the newest, rising stars of the Japanese poetic world.  She describes herself as a “badger-like girl that lives in…...

Hirata Toshiko 

Hirata Toshiko (1955-) is a prominent Japanese poet and novelist.  During the 1980s, she, along with Itō Hiromi, emerged as one of the foremost voices so-called “women’s boom”…...

Sakumi Tayama 

Sakumi Tayama was born in Miyazaki Prefecture in southern Japan in 1966 but moved to the northernmost prefecture of Japan, Hokkaido, at the age of three.  After studying English literature at Fuji…...

Tanikawa Shuntaro 

Tanikawa Shuntarō, born December 15, 1931 in Tokyo, Japan, is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad,…...

Nishikawa Miwa 

Nishikawa Miwa’s work has gained critical acclaim in Japan and abroad, following her debut film, Wild Berries, and her second film, Sway, which premiered at Cannes in 2006. The only Japanese film…...

Dazai Osamu 

Dazai, Osamu (1909–1948) is considered one of Japan’s greatest writers and was one of very few to consistently turn out entertaining work under the oppressive conditions of the Pacific War.…...

Okamoto Kido 

Okamoto Kido (1872–1939) was one of the most active authors in the kaiki revival. He was an enormously prolific writer and critic. In addition to his many kaiki shôsetsu, he wrote around two…...

Motoyuki Shibata 

Motoyuki Shibata teaches American literature and literary translation at the University of Tokyo.  Among authors he has translated are Paul Auster, Steve Erickson, Steven Millhauser, Richard Powers,…...

Hiroshi Yamamoto 

Hiroshi Yamamoto was born in 1956 in Kyoto. He began his career with game developers Group SNE in 1987 and debuted as a writer and game designer. He gained popularity with juvenile titles such as February…...

Kaho Nakayama 

Kaho Nakayama was born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1960. She graduated from Waseda University. Nakayama led a theatrical troupe—acting, writing, and directing—before she made her literary debut in…...

Sogil Yan 

Sogil Yan was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1936. He began writing after working various odd jobs and driving a taxi for over ten years. Yan has published dozens of books, several of which have been made into…...

shinji ishii 

shinji ishii was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1966. After studying French literature at Kyoto University, he moved to Tokyo, where he worked as a magazine editor before publishing his first book, The Dogs…...

Hiromi Kawakami 

Hiromi Kawakami was born in 1958. Her awards include the 1996 Akutagawa Prize for Tread on a Snake, the 1999 Ito Sei Prize for Oboreru [To Drown], and the 2001 Tanizaki Jun'ichiro Prize, for The Teacher's…...

Osamu Tezuka 

Osamu Tezuka (1928–89) is the god of Japanese manga comics. He originally intended to become a doctor and earned his degree before turning to what was still then considered a frivolous medium. With…...

Yoshihiro Tatsumi 

Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1935, Yoshihiro Tatsumi began writing and drawing comics for a sophisticated adult readership in a realistic style he called "Gekiga." He has influenced generations of Japanese…...

Kanji Hanawa 

Kanji Hanawa was born in Tokyo in 1936 and graduated from Tokyo University. A specialist in nineteenth-century French literature, he was until recently a professor at Tokyo's Kokugakuin University.…...

Akiko Itoyama 

Akiko Itoyama won the 2006 Akutagawa Prize for "Oki de Matsu," published here in its first English translation.

Natsuki Ikezawa 

Natsuki Ikezawa is a novelist, poet, essayist, and translator of modern Greek poetry. Born in 1945, he is regarded as one of the best serious writers in Japan. Ikezawa studied physics as a young man before…...

Minae Mizumura 

Born in Tokyo, Minae Mizumura moved with her family to Long Island, New York when she was twelve. She later went on to study French Literature at Yale College and after finishing her M.Phil. program, Mizumura…...

Yoko Tawada 

Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960 and was educated at Waseda University and the University of Hamburg. She made her debut as a writer with Missing Heels, which was awarded the Gunzo Prize for new writers…...

Chiba Mikio 

Chiba Mikio was born in 1944 in Miyagi prefecture, Japan. After working at a publisher of children's literature, he became a professor at Chiba University of Art, where for nine years he taught the…...

Fumiko Enchi 

Fumiko Enchi (1905–1986) was a Japanese novelist and literary critic. The daughter of a well-known Japanese literary scholar, she first wrote for the theater, later turning to novels and short stories.…...

Ryu Murakami 

Ryu Murakami is the best-selling author of more than a dozen novels and the winner of Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize. Many of his novels have been made into movies,…...

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