Translators
Hiroaki Sato is a prize-winning translator of Japanese poetry who, in the words of poet Forrest Gander, “for the last 40 years has been a kind of National Treasure in translating Japanese poetry into English”. His most recent book, published in 2012, is a biography of Mishima Yukio with Inose Naoki, Persona.
William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura, award-winning and prolific translators in Japan, have been translating Tanikawa Shuntaro’s poems since 1967. Passing en route to translate the poems of Sasaki Mikiro, Ooka Makoto, Kawasaki Hiroshi, Shirashi Kazuko, Toshimasu Gozo, Taguchi Inuo and many others, they have made a major contribution to exploring what still remains the barely explored gold mine of modern Japanese poetry. They founded the Kanto Poetry Center in 1968. Its bilingual annual Poetry Kanto was established in 1984. Kawamura has published many articles on the English Romantics, especially Shelley, while continuing his study of Dante and the Russian language. Elliott has published seven books of poems and other books of translation with Noah Brannen and Nishihara Katsumasa.
Co-translator Nishihara Katsumasa‘s recent books are Light Verse in America, translations of Selected Poems of W.D. Snodgrass and a Field Sing-A-Long by Kudo Naoka.
Leith Morton has written 6 books of poetry, most recently Tokyo: A Poem in Four Chapters (2006). He is also the author of six volumes of translated Japanese poetry, including Shuntaro Tanikawa: Selected Poems (2006). His other books include Modern Japanese Culture: The Insider View (2003); Modernism in Practice: An Introduction to Postwar Japanese Poetry (2004); Yosano Akiko no ‘Midaregami’ o Eigo de Ajiwau (2007); and The Alien Within: Representations of the Exotic in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature (2009).
Jeffrey Angles (1971- ) is an associate professor of Japanese and translation at Western Michigan University. He is the author of Writing the Love of Boys: Origins of Bishonen Culture in Japanese Modernist Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and translator of Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems of Ito Hiromi (Action Books, 2009), the award-winning Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako (University of California Press, 2010), and numerous other works of prose and poetry. He also writes poetry in his second language, Japanese.
Mitsuko Ohno has been a Professor at Aichi Shukutoku University since 1983, and is the author of Yeats and the Tradition of Anglo-Irish Literature (1999), Women’s Ireland (1998), both in Japanese. She is the co-author with Nualoa Ni Dhomhnaill of Pharoah’s Daughter (Shichosha, 2001), selected Irish poems with Japanese translation and CD, and with Frank Sewell of Mutsuo Takahashi’s On Two Shores (Dedalus Press, 2006), selected Japanese poems with English translation. Beverley Curran teaches linguistic, cultural, and media translation at Aichi Shukutoku University in Nagoya. She is currently working on a study of theater translation theory, practice, and performance in contemporary Japan.
Leza Lowitz and Oketani Shogo are Tokyo-based and award-winning translators. Their book of translations, America and Other Poems by Ayukawa Nobuo was published in 2007 with Kaya Press of New York. Leza Lowitz’s other books include the anthologies of contemporary Japanese women’s poetry A Long Rainy Season and Other Side River (Stone Bridge Press, the poetry collections 100 Aspects of the Moon (Printed Matter Press) Yoga Poems–Lines to Unfold By (Stone Bridge Press, and Old Ways to Fold New Paper (Wandering Mind), and, as co-editor, Donald Richie: The Japan Journals.
Takako Lento earned an MFA in poetry and translation from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She translates poetry and prose from English to Japanese as well as Japanese to English. She has published widely in periodicals and anthologies. Her most recent books include Tamura Ryuichi: On the Life & Work of a 20th Century Master and The Art of Being Alone: Poems 1952-2009 by Tanikawa Shuntaro.
Tomiyama Hidetoshi teaches American poetry at Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo. Co-translator Michael Pronko teaches American literature and culture there; he is a jazz critic and essayist as well.
Hosea Hirata, Professor of Japanese, is chair of German, Russian, Asian Languages and Literature at Tufts University in the U.S.
Marianne Tarcov is a PhD student at UC Berkeley in modern Japanese literature. Her research is about possibilities for social and political action in modern Japanese lyric. Her favorite poets include Miyazawa Kenji, Anne Carson, Baudelaire, and many others.
Translator Arthur Binard, husband of Kisako Ryo, is a poet, haiku poet, essayist, translator, versatile writer, who writes poetry in Japanese.
Translations (PK 2011) – “White Curtain in Sunlight and Wind,” “Leaving the October Palace,” & “Everything Has Two Endings”–by Ayako Takahashi and Mariko Shintani; and –“In Praise of Coldness” & “The Bell Zygmunt”–by Prof. Shige Hara’s Seminar, Dokkyo University.)
Judy Halebsky is a poet and translator. On a fellowship from the Japanese Ministry of Culture, she trained in Noh Theatre and Japanese Literature in Tokyo for three years. The MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, and the Canada Council for the Arts have supported her work. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, she now lives in San Francisco. She teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Dominican University of California.
Yumiko Tsumura was born and educated in Japan, and earned an MFA in poetry and translations from the University of Iowa Writers workshop, as well as an M.A. in literature from Kwansei Gakuin University. She has taught at universities in Japan and the U.S. Her poems have appeared in major poetry journals in the U.S. and Japan, such as Manoa, Wisconsin Review, Eastlit, Kyoto Journal and Kanto Poetry. Her books of poetry translations include Kazuko Shiraishi’s Let Those Who Appear (2002) and My Floating Mother, City (2009) by New Directions and Tamura Ryuichi Poems 1946 -1998 (2000) by CCC Books. In 2016 her translation of Shiraishi’s Sea, Land, Shadow – poems 1951 – 2015 is scheduled to be published by New Direction.
Miho Kinnas is a Japanese poet/translator. Her poems have appeared in journals including Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 24 Pearl Magazine and Really Systems. She holds MFA (Creative writing Poetry) from City University of Hong Kong. Her collection of poems Today, Fish Only is due to be published from Math Paper Press in 2015. She currently lives in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, USA with her husband, Ben.
Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a teacher, writer, researcher, and translator. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, Cyborg Chimera, Under the Ash, Voices of the Elders, Harps Upon Willows, and The Lined Palm, and two travel guides, one to the city of Suzhou entitled Suzhou Basics, and another co-authored with Nick Land and Lily Sun, entitled Open Door Guide to Shanghai. She also translated Sheng Keyi’s novels Northern Girls and Fields of White for Penguin Books, and Death Fugue for Giramondo Press, Chew Kok Chang’s short story collection Other Cities, Other Lives for Epigram Books in Singapore, and Li Na’s memoir, My Life, for Penguin Books. She also edited a collection of speculative poetry, A Demon in My View. Her poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and websites around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions, including dark ’til dawn, Things Disappear, and Studio White • Exhibition 2011.
Jordan A. Y. Smith has translated poetry by Mizuta Noriko, Yoshimasu Gozo, Usami Kohji, and Nomura Kiwao, and prose fiction from Alberto Fuguet and Fernando Iwasaki. He is currently Associate Professor in International Humanities at Josai International University, and has previously taught comparative literature, Japanese studies, and English at California State Univ Long Beach, UCLA, Roger Williams University, UC Riverside, Pepperdine University, and Korea University. He also researches in global comedy and translation studies and writes poetry/spoken word pieces.
Carol Hayes is a senior lecturer in Japanese language and Japanese studies at the Australian National University, Australia. She has a PhD in modern Japanese literature from the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary Japanese cultural studies, literature and film.
Rina Kikuchi is an associate professor at Shiga University, Japan, where she has been teaching English language, literature and cultural studies since 2003. She has a PhD in contemporary Irish poetry, which included a period of research at Trinity College, Dublin; and an MA in comparative literary theories from University of Warwick, UK. Her research interests include comparative literature and translation studies, with a current focus on the translation of Irish poetry written in English into Japanese, and research into the modern and contemporary Japanese women’s poetry.
Gregory Dunne is the author of two collections of poetry: Home Test (Adastra Press, 2009) and Fistful of Lotus (2000). He has contributed to Strangest of Theaters: Poets Writing Across Borders (McSweeneys and the Poetry Foundation, 2013). His poetry and prose have appeared in numerous magazines, including the American Poetry Review, Manoa, Poetry East, and Kyoto Journal. He lives in Japan and teaches in the Faculty of Comparative Culture at Miyazaki International College.
Goro Takano, born in the city of Hiroshima, is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Saga University, Japan, where he teaches English and Japanese/Western literature. His first novel, With One More Step Ahead, was published in US by BlazeVOX in 2009. His first poetry collection, Responsibilities of the Obsessed, was published in US by BlazeVOX in 2013. His second poetry collection, Silent Whistle-blowers, will be out soon. With Gregory Dunne he also has a book of translated Wakayama tanka in the works.
