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Contributor

Allison Markin Powell

Portrait of translator Allison Markin Powell
Contributor

Allison Markin Powell

Allison Markin Powell has been awarded grants from English PEN and the NEA, and the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami. Her other translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, and Kaoru Takamura. She was the co-organizer and cohost of the Translating the Future conference, served as co-chair of the PEN America Translation Committee, and currently represents the committee on PEN’s Board of Trustees. As part of the collective Strong Women, Soft Power, she is curating JFNY’s online literary series.

Articles by Allison Markin Powell

The Book That Launched Japan’s #MeToo Movement
By Shiori Ito
Originally published in 2017, Black Box, journalist Shiori Ito's memoir about her experience of sexual assault and her struggle to bring her attacker to justice, prompted a reckoning over gender-based…
Translated by Allison Markin Powell
Fear of Manners
By Kanako Nishi
Day in and day out, so many personal habits can drive us crazy.
Translated from Japanese by Allison Markin Powell
Walking the Keihin Factory Belt with Stuart Dybek
By Motoyuki Shibata
As usual, the boy missed the fly ball that anyone else would have caught with his eyes closed, and it rolled into a thicket of reeds by the river.
Translated from Japanese by Allison Markin Powell
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From “Sentimental Education”
By Kaho Nakayama
The woman gave birth to a baby girl at the maternity hospital and then disappeared the very same day.
Translated from Japanese by Allison Markin Powell
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Introduction
By Allison Markin Powell
I set out to showcase the robust variety of contemporary Japanese fiction, and I think these writers demonstrate just that, brilliantly.